Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative
by Proud to be Plug
Summary: The shadows are gathering. The storm is brewing. Events are spiralling out of the gods' control. Not even the ancient trainer of heroes, Chiron, can maintain hope in the fight against the growing powers of Jake Wilson and Tartarus. Cyrus Wright continues his journey to the centre of the darkness in this, the fourth book in the Piece of Darkness series.
1. Chapter One

**Author's Note: Hello again.**

 **EXTRA NOTE: This is turning up several days after the deadline as I had technical issues with uploading it.**

 **As is seemingly now tradition, here is the first chapter of the latest instalment of Piece of Darkness being published on the first Friday of September! I hope y'all like it. And I hope the review count for this story is better than the last one.**

 **As I am in university now, updates may be less frequent, not that any of you are baying for updates anyway.**

 **The usual rules apply. Try to read previous books including Rise of the Forgotten if you want to understand everything. And review!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

* * *

 _This thought led to a sudden, irrational fear. For a moment he felt the way you did when you suddenly realized you had swum out too far and the water was over your head. There was an intuitive flash._ We're being drawn into something. Being picked and chosen. None of this is accidental. Are we all here yet?

–Stephen King, 'It'

* * *

Never lose the initiative.

In any conflict situation, initiative is vital to victory. Perhaps the clearest example is chess. Here, initiative is the question of which player is responding, and which player is _acting_.

In conflict, you don't want to be responding. You need to be acting.

Initiative means the difference between success and failure - hell, between life and death. If you gain the initiative, hang onto it with everything you have. If you lose it, drag it back as fast and as hard as you can.

That's not all, though.

Being trapped in a position of defensive response is bad. Fatal. But not even realising it? Being totally unaware that your every move is being dictated by your opponent?

That's even worse.

* * *

The end of the world began on a cold, dark day in the middle of June.

The sky outside my bedroom window was an iron grey, like a sword dulled by too much blood. Dark clouds had reached the city a few days before, and since then the light of the sun had been kept from us, as though withheld by some celestial director.

And there was something else. The weather had an oppressive edge to it that was nothing to do with rain or sunshine. The clouds had brought with them an ominous atmosphere, as though they were the harbinger, or perhaps just the forewarning, of wicked things yet to come.

But that had to be my morbidly overactive imagination playing tricks on me.

I sat in my room, reading a book, now and then glancing out at the strange weather. I'd just returned from a visit to a friend: I'd gotten a lot better at dealing with normal human beings in the last few months. My time at a camp full of crazy demigods had done wonders for my people skills.

Now, as I looked up at the sky on this odd June day, I was thinking about Camp Half-Blood for the first time in weeks. I hadn't been back since December, nor had I felt any need to return. At first, when I'd stormed out of camp after a terminal argument with Zack Walker, I'd assumed I'd hear from Chiron again. I thought he'd send an emissary, just as he had the first time I'd left the demigod sanctuary, when Nico di Angelo had come to my home to guilt-trip me into coming back.

No-one had come. The months went by, and I was relieved as the span of days separated me from Camp Half-Blood. It was as though the whole melodramatic world of living Greek mythology had never even existed. By May, I was convinced that I would never hear anything from that world again. It was just a bad dream, painful for a moment but soon forgotten.

But today, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd been hasty in that judgement. I didn't know why, but I was filled with an instinct which had never been wrong before, an inner surety which told me that something was coming.

(It was only much later that I realised it was two years to the day since Nico had come on that guilt-tripping mission.

Talk about history repeating itself.)

And there was another thing. I had the odd feeling that I'd forgotten something, mislaid some crucial information amidst the madness. But I had no idea what, it was just a question without words at the edge of my mind.

So these were my thoughts, as I sat at the window. The apartment was quiet, with my dad working in the shop downstairs and my mom shut up in her study. I could hear only the formless rumbles of traffic in the street below, and the faint noises of people in the shop.

That calm made it easy to sense the approach of the Olympian.

I turned over a page, and felt a familiar tension form in my gut. It was abrupt and intense, the kind of feeling experienced when you find that a heavy object is, without warning, hurtling towards your head. It was also the pressure I felt when I was in the presence of a god.

I glanced around the room, shutting my book. There was a pressure at the back of my head, too, but not a headache. It was more like the uneasy sensation of running out of oxygen. I suddenly felt afraid. The terror of the unknown filled me as the tension in my gut worsened. I didn't know what was going on, and only the thought of the protective wards, installed on the apartment nearly two years before, kept me still.

And then, with a cold sharpness, I was certain that there was someone standing outside my bedroom. This wasn't even instinct. I _knew_ something was about to step into the room. I stared at the door, trying to remember where I'd left my dagger. If a monster had come for me, my only choice would be to fight, but I didn't know where the damn weapon was—

I started to stand up, when the door swung open and Lady Hestia, goddess of the hearth, stepped into my bedroom.

I fell back in my chair, unease giving way to pure astonishment.

She strolled in, her appearance the same as when I'd first met her on Olympus. The ancient goddess looked no older than eleven or twelve, and her only remarkable features were her flame-eyes and powerful aura. Her arms swung at her sides, and her face was set in a calm expression.

Without her even touching it, the door swung shut. Hestia stopped, and stood very still, a few feet away from me.

"I apologise for the psychic intrusion," she said, in a contrite tone. "I realised that my unannounced arrival would greatly alarm you, and I sent a premonition of my coming into your mind."

I just stared at her. What the hell was she doing here? Had she come to make me work with the gods again? Was she going to threaten me? Or talk to me in that demure voice until I gave in out of pure embarrassment?

I'd heard of divine intervention, but this was ridiculous.

A dim sense of the need to be polite was the only coherent thought I could manage, and I muttered, "Uh. Hi. D'you want to sit down?"

Hestia inclined her head, and turned to reach under my bed. I would've been astonished that she knew the fold-up stool was under there, but I'd already passed the event horizon of disbelief. I just watched in confusion as she pulled the stool out, opened it, and sat down in front of me.

"What— why— what are you _doing_ here?" I stammered.

Hestia's flame-eyes made it hard to read her expression, but she looked amused. She didn't say anything, just sat there, watching me. For some reason this confirmed my first thought - she was intervening on the gods' behalf, drawing me back into their world. Anger boiled up in me, and my unresolved rage with the Olympians reemerged before I could stop it.

"You're here to make me come back, aren't you? You and the rest of the gods have run into trouble, or something's gone wrong, and now you've come back to me because I'm the guy with the pure sight. You're here because of the goddamn _prontos profiteia_."

Hestia just eyed me.

"Hell, it doesn't matter who _I_ am, does it? The only important thing is that I'm the guy standing in _this_ spot at _this_ moment. I'm the Lightbringer, the guy who got landed with the job. Well, I gave up the job. I don't want it. You hear me? _I don't want it_."

I came to an abrupt stop as I ran out of words, feeling unnerved. Hestia's expression hadn't changed throughout my tirade. She sat, completely still, watching me without a flicker of emotion. I shifted in my seat, and wondered if I'd just signed my own death warrant.

Then, to my surprise, the goddess bowed her head in a deferential nod.

"You are correct in what you say about my fellow Olympians," she murmured, without any hesitation in her tone. "It is true that they have no interest in you as Cyrus Wright, but are merely desirous of securing your help as the Lightbringer. It is for that reason, and no other, that they requested my help in convincing you to rejoin the fight against the son of Chaos."

I nodded angrily, but the fight was already fading out of me. It's tough to stay mad at someone who's _agreeing_ with you.

"However, _my_ interest in you is more complex that that," the goddess continued, meeting my gaze.

For the first time since she'd entered the room, I remembered the curious way Hestia had treated me when we'd met on Olympus. She'd spoken to me with familiarity, almost friendliness, which had made no sense at the time. So much had happened afterwards that I'd completely forgotten about it, until now.

"What are you talking about?"

Hestia began to speak, then stopped herself and looked away, searching for the words. I sat there, wondering, sensing the approaching revelation like an animal anticipating an earthquake.

"Have you ever seen your aura?"

The question surprised me, and though I knew the answer, I was slow in answering, "Uh. Yes. Nico showed me when we first met, about two years ago."

"Good," Hestia nodded. "There was something remarkable about it, was there not?"

I frowned as I thought back. I remembered my aura had been a shocking bright red, almost like an ethereal fire had wrapped itself around me. Nico had showed me the auras of other mortals, in comparison, and they were nothing like mine.

"Yeah," I said, unsure where this was headed. "Yeah, there was."

Hestia folded her arms. There was silence between us for a long moment before she spoke again.

"As you have seen, the children of the gods always have auras that are similar to those borne by their godly parents," she said, looking out the window. "Conventionally, blood relation is the only way a human can take on a godlike aura.

"There are, however, exceptions to that rule. Sometimes a god may wish, or have the need, to bestow a powerful aura upon a mortal. The most well-known instance is Artemis's Hunters. When they pledge allegiance to the goddess and join the Hunt, they gain her blessing and take on an aura far more powerful than their original one.

"Auras are far more important than most people realise. They are a reflection and an expression of a soul's power. As one's power grows, so one's aura develops, and if the aura gains new strength, one takes on new powers or abilities."

Hestia paused, tapping her chin with one small finger. The beginnings of understanding were stirring in the depths of my mind, but I waited, not wanting to make a false connection in my haste to learn the truth.

"Your distinctive aura is not merely a consequence of your pure sight," she said, looking at me directly. "It is, in fact, the result of your having received the blessing of an Olympian."

I blinked. This was something that had never even occurred to me, but it explained a lot. Perhaps it accounted for more than I could even imagine.

"And," I said, "which Olympian gave me their blessing?"

There was a tiny pause, and I could see Hestia considering how to answer my question. Then, without another word, she snapped her fingers, and both her aura and mine flared into life around us.

I'd already been able to see the goddess's aura, of course, but now it blazed with an almost blinding intensity. At the same time, I became aware of a flickering red light surrounding me from head to toe, and I looked down at myself in astonishment.

My aura was exactly the same colour as Hestia's. We looked like we'd been wrapped in flames from the same hearth. Even the movement was similar: both our auras swayed and flickered, reassuringly calm, even soothing, like a fire on a winter's night.

I looked up at Hestia, as my aura faded away. Disbelief filled me, even as understanding echoed through my mind.

"You," I breathed.

It was ridiculous, yet it explained all of it. My aura. The odd sense of connection I'd felt with Hestia. My curious, improbable survival when I'd fallen into the Sea of Chaos.

My mind raced as I linked everything together. I had no memory of Hestia placing this blessing on me, and I bet godly auras couldn't be handed out from a distance. This either meant that she'd done it when I was asleep at some point, or else when I was very, very young.

The world stopped, almost casually, as though it had just noticed something.

A conversation I'd had with my father two years ago, fell back into my mind.

 _I can tell you that, before you were born, your mother and I were visited by someone who told us how you had a fate that would be rather more colourful than most._

 _So this visitor was some magical female being. Was she a goddess? A spirit? A ghost?_

I'd wondered about that question for so long, but I'd never expected the answer to just drop into my lap. I'd never expected the person who knew the full truth about me to just _stroll_ into my _room_.

This was the secret that had been with me since I was born, and this was the goddess who'd been shaping my path since _before_ I was born.

My gaze met Hestia's.

"You," I said again. "You were the Visitor. You're the one who told my parents what was going to happen to me."

Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought a look of relief passed over Hestia's face. She seemed happy that the moment of revelation had finally been reached.

"That's right," she nodded, smiling. "I learned of your fate, and of your close connection with the fortunes of us gods. I saw that it was essential to take some small but direct actions, in order to ensure your progress."

"My progress…" I echoed, feeling dazed. I'd known for a long time about this mysterious figure who was so closely acquainted with my future and my pure sight, but it was a whole different matter to be actually face-to-face with such a being. I felt as though a curtain had been pulled back, revealing complex workings which I'd never even imagined, but which were determining the course of my existence.

"But _how_?" I demanded. I needed some kind of context, a clarification of how this bizarre situation had come to pass. "How do you know all this about me? And how _much_ do you know?"

"The first thing you must understand," Hestia replied, shifting in her seat, "is that I can't tell you what your future is. I have seen a great deal, more than I have told anyone, even your parents, but I cannot reveal all."

"Why?"

"I fear the consequences of a full disclosure. Great events hang in the balance. If I were to bring the future into the present by excessively acting upon or communicating what I know, I could cause things to take a drastic, unforeseen turn. I believe you mortals refer to this as the butterfly effect. I can, however, tell you about those things that have already transpired."

She paused, and reached into her jeans pocket. After a moment of rummaging, she withdrew a small black stone.

"This is a memory—" she began, but I cut her off.

"I know what it is." I stared at the piece of obsidian, irrationally fearful. Only one year ago, Jake Wilson had sat in this room with a similar piece of rock, and he'd shown me the terrible truth of his past. While Hestia's memory stone could not have anything so grim contained within it, I still felt unsettled by the prospect of delving into more stored recollections.

Hestia looked surprised by my reaction, but said nothing as she placed the obsidian on the table between us.

"How much do you know about the Second Titan War?" she asked, after a moment.

"Uh," I said, confused by the abrupt shift in topic. "Not a lot. Just some stories. The general outline, not many details."

The goddess nodded, and took a deep breath, as though bracing herself. She was silent for a long moment.

"Most say that Percy Jackson vanquished the Titan Lord Kronos," she said. "The reality was more complex. While Percy played a central role in the victory, Luke Castellan was the most important hero in the final conflict. He was serving as Kronos's host, but at the last moment before the Titan reclaimed his full powers, Luke regained control of his body and killed himself. He effectively destroyed the Lord of Time.

"The resulting explosion was massive, though not in a physical way. It shattered Kronos's consciousness into millions of tiny fragments, and for one brief moment, the force of the detonation tore a hole in the fabric of time itself."

"How do you know all this?"

"There were five people in the throne room of the gods at the final moment," Hestia said, with a wry smile. "Luke, Percy, Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood, and the last Olympian. Me."

She placed one hand on the obsidian, and nodded at me to do the same. With a significant amount of trepidation, but a proportionate level of curiosity, I put my hand on the rock, and let myself fall into the past.

* * *

When my surroundings faded back into focus, I was even more startled than that time I'd found myself floating in mid-air next to Jake Wilson.

I'd never been in the throne room of the gods, but I still understood where I was. The place was in bad shape. A massive pile of rock and metal lay near the empty doorframe, and big chunks had been hacked off a number of the thrones. A fissure gaped in the marble floor, and patches of the tiles were improbably covered by fresh grass.

I looked around. I was standing with my back to a hearth, in which a few dull coals glowed, almost extinguished. A long, curved sword lay on them. Hestia stood a few feet away, watching me. The air around us was crackling with tension, as though an electrical storm was raging invisibly.

"Look," she murmured, pointing.

Annabeth Chase was sprawled on the ground near Athena's throne, with Grover Underwood, the satyr, by her side. Just in front of me, Percy Jackson and a tall, handsome but _glowing_ man stood facing each other.

"Please," croaked the man - Luke - bent over in terrible pain. "No time." His hands were red-raw.

Percy stared at the son of Hermes, his expression unreadable. He held a dagger in his hands, Annabeth's dagger, ready to strike, but he wasn't moving. His gaze flickered back and forth between Luke and Annabeth, as his blue-green aura churned around him.

Then he moved, and offered the blade to the son of Hermes.

Grover yelped in alarm. Percy just stood there, scared but determined. He and I watched as Luke grasped the hilt and unlatched the side straps of his armour. As Luke exposed his single weak spot, just under his left arm, I remembered the story about how he'd bathed in the River Styx to gain invulnerability, before he'd become the Titan's host.

Breathing heavily, he stabbed himself - not deeply, but still he roared in awful agony. His eyes glowed, and the throne room began to shake. Percy was thrown to the floor, as Luke glowed brighter and brighter, the sheer power gaining intensity until it felt like the very air was about to go on fire—

The energy around the demigod exploded outwards in a terrible release of force, an earthquake of arcane force compressed into a few feet. The power of the Titan scattered out in the seismic blast, expelling from Luke's body in rippling golden rings as he crumpled onto the ground.

Hestia raised a hand as he hit the floor, and everything shifted into slow-motion.

"To everyone else, this moment was almost instantaneous," she told me. "We gods, however, are able to experience time more slowly when necessary. I did so here."

I heard movement behind us, and glanced around to see another Hestia emerge from the hearth. She ignored us, and stepped forward to watch the rings of power flying from Luke grow thicker and thicker. The explosion moved faster and faster, until finally a wall of power that reached right up to the cathedral-like ceiling burst from the demigod. He was raised a few feet into the air, then settled on the ground, as we were surrounded by golden light. Impenetrable, bright golden power, all around the two Hestia and me, blinding me. It exerted a physical, burning pressure, and my vision blurred as dizziness started to overwhelm me.

And then, in an instant, the light was replaced by hundreds, _thousands_ of flickering images. All around us and above us, like a 360-degree cinema screen, countless pictures flashed before us in a storm of colour and movement. I stared around, unable to absorb the onslaught of visual information, caught in a sphere of unending data.

"These were all images of the future," Hestia said quietly, as her past self stared at everything, somehow taking it all in at once. "They cascaded through the hole in time, pouring into my mind in an instant. Many of them have already come to pass."

I didn't recognise any of it at first, but judging from how many of them showed battles with terrible, huge beings, I guessed they were of the Giant War. Then the flickering windows into the future started to show _me_ , as detailed images of every significant mythological event I'd been involved in flashed before us. The whole story played out, showing my whole story, all the way up to my last argument at camp—

Right then, Hestia made an grasping gesture with her right hand, and the entire vision was snuffed out like a candle disappearing in a flurry of snow.

* * *

I blinked.

We were back in my room.

"I'm sorry to cut things off like that," Hestia told me, picking up the obsidian stone, "but I can show you no more. As I said, I can't reveal anything about your future."

I restrained myself from saying something sarcastic. Of course, it would be just too easy to find out the end of the story. Then I wouldn't get to enjoy the fun of suffering, worrying and trying not to die.

"So you saw all that?" I said instead.

"In a sense," Hestia replied. "In fact, I had a vision of the wars with the giants and with Tartarus that was even more complex and compressed than what I just showed you. What you saw there is a close approximation. Your mortal mind would be incapable of comprehending the true nature of what I experienced."

"Gee, thanks," I muttered.

I sat in silence, staring at the floor. I wasn't feeling any particular emotion, just the empty tiredness that accompanies an excessive amount of new information. It was all too much to take in. The idea that Hestia had seen across time itself and learned of the future was pretty staggering on its own. That she'd seen so much of _my_ fate, and subsequently visited my parents because of that vision, was even more—

Wait a minute.

"Hold on," I said, looking up at her. "You saw all that when Kronos was destroyed. But that was, what? Four years ago? My parents said that they were visited _before_ I was born." I leaned towards her, frowning. "How is that possible?"

Hestia looked unsurprised by my question. "I conferred with my fellow senior gods as soon as I had the opportunity. The walls of time were very fragile for some time after Kronos's defeat, and a great deal of residual Titanic power remained in the throne room of the gods even after he was gone. Zeus and I agreed that it was necessary to take advantage of those circumstances to influence the course of future events. Once the demigods had left Olympus, I was dispatched across the time stream to place my blessing on you."

She paused, looking away from me guiltily. "However, I had to do more. I went beyond my remit, and sent myself further back, to communicate some of what I knew to your parents. Perhaps it was a mistake, but I knew it was the right thing."

I thought I'd used up my disbelief quota for the day, but it turned out I was just getting started. "You travelled through _time_?"

"You mortals have such a fixed understanding of the fourth dimension," she shrugged. "Time is not so different from the other three. One can move up or down in time, just as one can move up or down in space. The problem is actually overcoming the way all beings are intrinsically bound to _forward_ progression _through_ time. That requires the correct circumstances and a significant amount of power, which were freely available in the aftermath of Kronos's defeat."

I shook my head. It was no wonder I'd never managed to work out this stuff by myself. Magic visions? Almost omniscient comprehension of the future? _Time-travel?_ Who would have ever seen _this_ coming?

"Well," I muttered. "Things can't get much crazier than this."


	2. Chapter Two

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

* * *

 _Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?_

–'It's a Wonderful Life'

* * *

"Alright," I said, after a few more moments of contemplation. "What's the point?"

Hestia looked at me.

"Why show me all this?" I said, gesturing. "Okay, great, you've finally revealed the truth. I'm grateful, though it would have been nice to find it out a long time ago. At last I know who's been shaping my life since before I was born. Now what?"

The goddess raised her eyebrows, as though she couldn't quite believe my question.

"Why, you come back, of course," she said, as though it was obvious. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? Truth. Full disclosure, as the mortals say these days. Well, now you have it. Surely you have no more reason to resent us gods."

"But why _now_?" I pushed, prickling at her presumption. "Why have you come back to me _now_?"

Hestia's gaze fell. She looked down at her hands for a while before she said, "Tartarus."

A chill ran down my spine, cooling my thoughts and my anger. I sat back in my chair. "What about him?"

"The situation worsens every day, as he continues to gather power. His forces have made numerous attacks, yet we have found no way of weakening him. His aggressiveness has been increasing ever since his presence in our world was consolidated last Christmas." Hestia paused, her aura flickering with tension. "It is only a matter of time before he launches a major assault. We are gathering every ally and weapon that we can reach. That is why we need everyone. Why we need you."

She stopped. Her words seemed to linger in the air, turning it icy.

So even the truth had a cost. The gods had allowed Hestia to tell me all these things, but only with the belief that it would placate me, make me feel willing, even eager to help. They didn't really care about me or about telling me what I wanted to know. They were just interested in securing another piece for their side of the board.

I scowled. I was grateful to get this disclosure, but I resented my own curiosity being used against me. The Olympians were turning my life, my _story_ into politics and manipulation. Why couldn't they just come and _ask_ for my help?

"And which am I?" I said bitterly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said the gods are gathering allies and weapons," I muttered, straightening in my seat. "Which am I?"

"Cyrus," she said. "What is it?"

Anger filled me again. My rage had cooled, but it was by no means gone. I slapped my hand down on the table between us, unable to look Hestia in the eye.

"I'm not a pawn to be pushed around, alright?" I snapped. "You come in here, tell me all this, and expect me to waltz out of here with you like we're best buddies. I don't blame you, you aren't anywhere near so bad as the other gods. But just because you do something for me doesn't mean you can expect me to throw myself back into a war which will most likely kill me, all my friends, and probably my family too."

I paused, drew in a deep breath, before finally giving voice to my other objection.

"And anyway," I muttered, "what difference can I make? I can't save the world. I'm just one guy. What I do isn't going to make the difference between life or death for the gods or for civilisation. The best I can ever do is kill a few monsters and make a few lucky guesses."

I'd turned away from Hestia, but I could feel her staring at me. I sighed, rubbing my brow, trying to regain some calm.

I just couldn't accept this duty. It was too much. To return to camp was to become the Lightbringer, and take on the task set down in the prontos profiteia, the task of unleashing the hidden light, and weaving the shadow's shroud. That wasn't something my shoulders were made to bear. I was _mortal_. I was just _me_.

"I understand your concerns, and your fears," Hestia said, her tone conciliatory. I still didn't look at her. "The personal danger of reentering this war is great. However, I can at least guarantee that your family will always be safe. I took that to be one of my duties long ago. So long as I walk the earth, I will ensure their safety." She paused. "As for your second fear… I understand that, too, and I think I know how to help you." The goddess stood up. "But you need to come with me."

"What?" I blinked up at her.

"Come," she bade me, commanding but cheerful. "Walk with me. I will show you the way past your fear. As your self-appointed guardian, I must at least do that."

I was suspicious. "Why?"

"Trust me," Hestia insisted, stepping away. "After all, have I ever steered you wrong?"

She walked to the door. I struggled for a moment, considering that this might be a trick, or a way to distract me, but my reason won out over my petulance.

Because when it came to being the Lightbringer, I didn't want to listen to anyone.

But maybe that was the problem.

* * *

My mom was still in her study. Somehow she'd managed not to notice that an ancient Greek goddess had entered her home. I didn't disturb her, and left with Hestia. We strolled down the street. I wondered if people would think that Hestia was my little sister, and despite my anger had to repress a laugh.

"I don't often venture into the mortal world like this," Hestia mused, as we passed my local bookstore. "I've always been an introverted Olympian. I respect you mortal folk more than my relatives, but I've always felt it better to leave you alone. Obviously few of my family agree. The number of demigods walking around will tell you that."

"What's so great about mortals, anyway?" I said grimly, feeling uncharitable. "All most of us ever do is screw up the world. The majority of the human race spends more time causing problems than it does solving them."

I cast a sidelong glance at Hestia. For some reason, I found myself wanting to disrupt her solid, unchanging composure. I don't know why. In any case, my comment had no impact.

"That's certainly true," she replied, glancing at me. She'd placed some kind of glamour over herself, so that she appeared to have human eyes. "No god will argue with you there. However, that's not why my family associates with you."

Our conversation paused as we crossed a road amongst a group of tourists. It was only once the camera-toting Europeans had moved off in another direction that I asked, "Then why _are_ you so interested in us?"

"You mortals possess something we gods will never have," Hestia answered, looking up at the sky for a moment. The heavy clouds still hung over the city, unmoving, like a teenager's bad mood.

"What's that?"

"Free will," she smiled. "You are able to act with or against your own nature. Immortal beings like us can seek to change, but we will always be confined by the prison of our own characteristics. A race which is in control of its own destiny, which can change and evolve, will always be of great interest to us."

"Really," I said, swerving out of the way of a shambling man with a brown paper bag.

"Oh yes," was her reply, as she looked back at the man with pity. "After all, one never knows what you curious creatures are going to do next."

We walked on, the streets growing busier as we neared the river and the ferry port. For a moment, I wondered if Hestia was going to bring me to Olympus without bothering to tell me, but I dismissed the idea. She'd already shown that she had enough respect for me and my wishes to not do that. Hell, if she wanted to force me there she would probably teleport me straight into the throne room.

My thoughts, then, revolved on both humans and gods as I walked with the last Olympian. What was it, really, that made me any different to the rest of the so-called mortals? Pure sight did not make me different. Lots of people have unusual gifts. Nor did Hestia's blessing make me into someone extraordinarily powerful, it just gave me a little protection. Destiny did not make me special, because no destiny could bestow on me qualities I did not already possess.

And what, I reflected, as we evaded the attentions of an over-enthusiastic street vendor, really _was_ destiny? Was there such a thing as _fate?_ Is every soul truly caught up in some great narrative that is beyond both their comprehension and control? Or are our lives entirely our own, our paths through time set by our individual choices?

Or, even more alarming, were some people _chosen_ , picked from the crowd and placed on certain paths, their purposes decided and arranged, their whole lives a plan waiting to be fulfilled?

"How do you know that what you saw will actually happen?" I asked Hestia, as the river came into sight, a few blocks away. "What if it's just one of many possible futures? If time is a river, it must have a lot of tributaries."

"You misunderstand, Cyrus," she replied, leading me across the road, which must have looked odd. "I did not see just _one_ future. I saw a great many."

Luckily we were already across the road when I stopped and stared at her. " _What_?"

"A great deal of information was given to me in that moment," she murmured, tugging me to the edge of the sidewalk. We narrowly avoided being stampeded by a group of marching businesspeople. "To be quite truthful with you, the experience nearly destroyed my consciousness. But I saw it all, every permutation, every twist of fate, and each of the timelines that I saw involved Tartarus rising from his prison. Most of them showed Rhea waking from her slumber. Every one, without fail, placed you in a central role, at the heart of the conflict."

A thought occurred to me, and my stomach lurched. I stopped walking again. A jogger nearly collided with me, and muttered in annoyance as he brushed past. I ignored him, and stared at the goddess.

"Did any of those timelines show what happens if I _don't_ help the gods?" I asked her. "Did you see that?"

Hestia nodded, her illusionary eyes urging me on.

The world around me seemed to fade away as I processed all this. Perhaps, then, I was misunderstanding this thing called fate. It was not a case of being bound to one particular path, or being forced to become a certain person. It was about facing a choice, having to decide which of many roads one was going to take to one's destination. Hell, it was about choosing what that destination was going to be.

My life may indeed be someone else's plan, but I got to decide if it was fulfilled.

At some point we'd started walking again, and turned onto a quieter street.

"Come," Hestia said, leading the way, "let us sit a while."

After a couple more minutes of walking, we finally stopped at a bench that looked out over the river. I sat down, and stared at the rolling waters as I tried to put some order on my thoughts.

"I saw Jake, too," she said abruptly. I looked at her.

"You did?"

She nodded. "In all those permutations, all those twists and turns, there always was a few people that held the most important positions. You were one. Jake was another. He… well, at one time he could have been like yourself, an agent of the light against the dark. But he chose another path through the maze, and now he is as much an enemy as Tartarus." She paused, a disappointed look passing across her eyes. "I tried to reach him. He came to Olympus once, eager to challenge the gods in their own home.

"He wanted to face Athena herself at chess, the fool. I could have allowed it. Perhaps that would have taken care of him, yet I wanted to offer him another view of us, the proud, untouchable gods. I played him at chess, and he nearly defeated me. But I tried to reach out to him, subtly, tried to touch his mind with some sense of the way things could be." Hestia stopped, and shook her head. "But I couldn't stir him. He was too angry. He _is_ too angry."

I nodded. I'd often thought that anger was Wilson's defining trait. It was always bubbling under the surface of his polished calm, waiting to explode in the face of any who confronted him.

And yet, I thought suddenly, was I so different? Was my refusal to help the gods, help my friends, not a similar kind of stubborn selfishness?

For the first time, I really asked myself what I was so angry about. I'd believed my issue had been the lack of truth, but now I knew everything, and still my resistance remained. I'd believed, too, that my anger was with the demigods, but that was illogical. They probably had more reason to be furious than I did. I'd told myself I was irritated that my fate was being decided and written for me by alien forces, but the truth was that I was wholly in control of my destiny.

So what the hell was my problem?

I sat back on the bench, and breathed deeply. Hestia said nothing, letting me think.

Was I even really that angry? Or was my frustration just hiding other, less noble emotions?

Maybe I was just a little afraid. Scared of risking everything. Frightened to sacrifice myself for a cause that might not be successful.

Maybe, too, I was simply lazy. The challenge of the struggle, the difficult nature of fighting for people like the gods, who weren't mine but who still needed me. I had to believe in a cause that was not mine. I had to put my shoulder to a wheel that was not, by the normal way of things, mine to push.

In a moment of brutal honesty, I admitted the truth to myself. My bluster and anger were only a small part of my resistance to helping the Olympians and their offspring. My refusal to join the fight against Tartarus was really just a matter of my fear and lethargy overcoming me. Anger was an excuse. It was easier to look outraged than it was to look scared and indolent.

I closed my eyes. On the other hand, honesty didn't fix the problem. Admitting my problems wasn't some kind of magic solution. My flaws did not vanish in a waft of goodwill, like some sort of cliched Christian fable. I still felt deep reluctance at the thought of rejoining camp, reentering the fray.

But something within me - something deeper even than my fear - told me that I had to move beyond these things. My moral compass, ingrained within my mind by both parenting and practice, pointed me towards the very thing that I recoiled from.

I couldn't do it.

But I needed to find a way, no matter how hard it was.

Finally, I knew what I wanted Hestia to tell me.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. The goddess was gazing at the water, ostensibly oblivious to my inner struggles.

"Hestia," I said, hesitant, "what do you think will happen if, you know, I don't help? I mean, what kind of difference can— could I make?" I took a breath, and added, "You must know. You said you've seen all the different timelines. Could… could you show me?"

The goddess looked up at me. The disguise on her eyes made her expression a little easier to read. She seemed pleased by my question, but also wary, as though embarking on a problematic task.

"Give me your hand," she murmured.

I obeyed, proffering my hand. She took it in both of hers, squeezed tightly, I blinked—

* * *

—and we were in the same place, yet it was somewhere else entirely.

I looked around. It was the same riverfront, but something felt different. There was a tension in the air that hadn't been present a second ago. The clouds in the sky had darkened, and the temperature had dropped about ten degrees.

Then I noticed the strangest thing: the quiet. The natural ambient noise of the metropolis was almost gone. There was still some background noise, but it was muted, as though most of the city had just vanished.

Fear made my skin feel tight and strained. I stood up slowly, and stared across the river. I spotted two empty husks bobbing downstream: wrecked ferries, drifting on their sides, with no signs of movement onboard.

Suddenly, a rushing noise, so loud and high-pitched that it sounded like a scream yet it was too loud for that, filled the air. I jumped, and glanced around, just in time to see a large, glowing form plummet out of the grey sky and smash into the bridge, several hundred yards to our right.

There were few cars on the bridge, but still the sounds of alarmed horn honking rang out across the river as the figure, impossibly, climbed to its feet. Even from afar, I could see the intense green aura which swathed the fifteen-foot-tall form. As I watched, the thing shook its head, jumped, and took to the air again—

—and collided with another form which blurred out from the clouds above, a dark, indistinct shape that was even bigger than the other. The two figures grappled in mid-air for a moment, their powerful auras formed an intense field of light around them, black and green auras hissing and sparking on contact with each other. Then, with a silent blast of shadows that seemed to shake everything, the larger figure hurled the smaller one across the sky. The green form shot through the air, and hit the water with a terrific splash, only a few yards away from Hestia and me.

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded of the goddess. "Where _are_ we?"

She hadn't moved from her position, as she watched both me and the fighting beings. "This is what you wanted to know, Cyrus. I saw this, along with everything else. This is a world where you never existed. This is a world where you never made a difference."

That shivering fear turned into frozen horror. I looked around as the dark figure floated down towards us, bearing an unmistakeable smog of menace with it. It was easy to recognise that dark power, those churning shadows which wrapped around the twenty-foot tall being like a living shroud.

"Tartarus," I whispered.

A few feet from the river's edge, water flew up in a column thirty feet high or more, and the other being reemerged. The water fell away as she turned to face the shadow king who was bearing down upon her, and now I recognised this other entity, too.

"Rhea, come," came Tartarus's whispering, grinding voice. His whole body, even his face, was obscured by the shadowy armour in which he was clad. He looked more like a pillar of darkness than anything else, his physical form was so covered by his power. "Surrender the battle. You can do nothing more. Your time is at its end."

The Titaness looked much the same as she had at Alcatraz, but now her imposing aura was waning. Her powerful presence, so intense when I'd seen her in San Francisco, was as nothing next to Tartarus's unstoppable, merciless strength.

"I shall not yield to you, shadow scum," she hissed, clenching her fists and gathering what remained of her strength. Green-grey power wreathed around her, and the air seemed about to snap with the tension. The water beneath them began to steam, as the energy of the battle boiled it.

I looked back at Hestia, as Tartarus drifted towards his prey.

"I don't understand," I whispered, though the two of them obviously couldn't see us. "How could this have happened?"

The goddess's expression was genial, but firm, her gaze not shifting from the confrontation. "You underestimate the influence that you have had on real events. In this alternate timeline, Nico di Angelo never stopped Rhea's initial attempt to rise, because he was not there to do so."

" _What_? Why wasn't he?"

Rhea and Tartarus continued to exchange verbal blows, as they drew closer together. I looked back and forth between them and Hestia.

"In the real timeline, Nico was only at camp to help reclaim my Flame because he had just brought you there," Hestia said calmly, unaffected. "In this version, you never existed, and so he was not at Camp Half-Blood when his presence was required. By the time Chiron learned of the Flame's theft, shadow-travel had already been shut down and Nico couldn't reach camp in time. Percy took his place on the retrieval team, but he was overcome and killed by Jake Wilson, who successfully loosed Rhea from her bonds."

I stared at Hestia in disbelief, even as Rhea and Tartarus clashed again, the noise of their collision somehow muted, like the city sounds, like everything except the goddess's words.

"And then we have Tartarus," she went on. "In this timeline, you were not on the mission to the Edge of the West. Nico and Alice alone were sent there, and they were lost in the Fields of Silence, never to be seen again. The gods remained entirely unaware of Tartarus's rise, and when he broke from his prison, the gods were caught completely by surprise. They were swept away by the force of the shadow god's fury."

Hestia waved one hand in a large, wiping gesture, and the scene around us changed, fading out like a movie transition, fading us into another place.

Now, we stood on the stairway to Olympus.

Or, at least, what _should_ have been the stairway to Olympus.

Most of the floating marble pathway was gone, with only one in every five blocks still in their original positions. Beyond, Mount Olympus was a wreck. Most of its buildings had been levelled, and the rest were in ruins. The place looked like it had been bombarded by military-grade explosives. Major impact damage had caved in roofs and reduced walls to rubble. The paving stones that formed the roads had been torn and piled up to form barricades, but those walls of broken stone had been crushed, in some places to little more than dust.

I looked up to the top of the mountain, to the throne room of the gods, but it was gone.

Just gone.

"Together, Rhea and Tartarus attacked Olympus," Hestia said, her tone flat, as though reading the weather. "Taken by surprise, the gods were unable to respond to such an assault, and their defences crumbled under the combined pressure of the Titan and the primordial being. Most of the minor gods were destroyed, some of the major ones were broken, and just a few escaped."

I stared around in mute horror. Such total destruction, all because I had never existed? It was almost impossible to believe.

Hestia waved her hand again, and things changed. Now, we stood upon Half-Blood Hill, looking down at camp.

It was nighttime. The wind howled across the hilltop on which we stood, and the rain spat down in spurts, stinging my eyes. A battle raged in the valley below, flowers of fire burning where buildings used to be, the remains being used to erect a barricade around the remaining structures. A small number of demigods were holding together a tenuous defensive line against a horde of monsters, which battered on the barricade as a handful of archers tried to stave them off.

"The half-bloods, too, were caught by surprise," Hestia said. "The borders failed after the gods fled Olympus, and their numbers were halved within days. They managed to force the monsters back far enough to be able to erect defences, but as you can see, it's only a matter of time before the camp falls completely."

As I watched, four demigods jumped through a gap in the barricade and joined the defensive line. They hacked at the monsters, each fighter taking down five creatures at a time. But it didn't make any difference, because Tartarus's forces were reforming almost instantly, as reinforcements melted out of the night's shadows. I wiped the rain from my face as the demons wrestled the angels, and the angels were overcome.

"This is impossible," I said hollowly, staring at Hestia, as though she had wrought this nightmare. "How can this be? Did you really see this? You couldn't have."

She looked up at me, her disguise now gone, her fire-eyes smouldering. "I have seen more than enough possible timelines to understand the course of such events. I know all the possible variations, all the key moments which determine the course of the narrative. The war with Tartarus and Rhea is, to me, a mathematical equation. I understand it completely. It hinges on several crucial values, and if just one of them had not been present, such as you, the consequences would have been thus."

I stared into the valley of darkness, shaking my head. This was so huge, so much bigger than me, and yet it had happened because of me, or rather it _could_ have done.

Hell, maybe it was still possible.

A more cynical person might have said that Hestia was manipulating things to overemphasise my role, but I knew that wasn't true. Instinctively I trusted her, believed that she wouldn't lie to me. This Olympian, at least, I could have faith in.

That was a pretty big thing to say about someone I'd met twice, but I realised that the bond between us, first wrought when she'd given me her blessing, was strong enough for me to comprehend her. As the goddess of the home, truth was her mainstay.

What I saw, then, was a truthful rendering of what would happen if I had never entered the universe. It would have been easy to take this personally and become hubristic about the whole thing, but I was fully aware that this was not a matter of personalities. I occupied a position, a role assigned to me by the implacable march of time, by the uncompromising arrangements of life. I was the Lightbringer, just as someone else is the guy who has to invent a computer. My importance was a consequence of my position in time and space, not a feature of my personal greatness.

Screams rang out below, as the monsters tore open a hole through the barricade and began streaming in, wreaking havoc amongst the defenders. It was horrible. The demigods retreated step by step, fighting ferociously all the way, but the sheer number of enemies was overwhelming. These people, many of them my friends in the real world, were cut down like stalks of grass by the war machine that was Tartarus's minions.

Yet each fought until the end.

I turned away as the battle grew worse, the demigods' position deteriorating until they looked more like doomed men warding off sharks than they did warriors combating foes. With a lurch of nausea, I realised that this was still far too possible. Hestia didn't say it, because she was a hell of a lot more tactful than me, but we both knew that some form of this could easily occur. Perhaps it would not happen because of me, but if things ended this way, that wouldn't matter. Finger-pointing is a luxury available only to the living.

I covered my face with my hands. I'd wanted to see something that proved I could make a difference. I'd wanted to understand how much of an impact I could really make. Hestia had given that to me. Now I had to make my choice.

I still felt that fear and laziness. Some part of me still rebelled at the idea of throwing my lot into such a risky fight. I knew that nothing anyone could show me could fully eradicate that weaker aspect of my personality. We all have our own personal shadow, which walks behind us as long as there is light.

But there are some horrors that are too strong to be ignored. I could not turn aside after seeing this. Some things are too disturbing to be seen, but when they _are_ seen, seen and recognised, they must be acted on.

I realised at last that my departure from camp after the solstice had been far more selfish than I'd ever imagined, and as I stood at the borders of a theoretical Camp Half-Blood, I knew I had to return to the real one. The half-bloods needed me to come back. My _friends_ needed me.

I just hoped that they wanted me, too.

I opened my eyes, and looked down at the goddess of the hearth.

"I've made up my mind," I said quietly. "I want to go back."

Hestia just smiled. She raised one hand, and rubbed a finger and thumb together. The vision of Camp Half-Blood began to fade, the wind and rain easing, the noise of the battle disappearing, the screams of the dying demigods drifting away.

A thought struck me.

"I just have one more question," I eyed the goddess, as New York - _my_ New York - reappeared around us. " _Why_ are you like this? Why are you so different from the other Olympians? So honest, so… _wise_?"

Hestia raised her eyebrows, and laughed freely.

"Oh dear, Cyrus, as always you misunderstand," she chuckled. "It is not that _I_ am especially wise. It is simply that everyone _else_ is incredibly foolish."


	3. Chapter Three

**My apologies for the lack of updates, my focus has been more on college and work but never fear, I have not forgotten this story.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

* * *

 _"_ _Please would you mind telling me how they are going to murder me? You see, it interests me personally."_

–Graham Greene, 'Our Man in Havana'

* * *

"I'm still trying to understand," I said, "how much you actually _know_."

"Everything," Hestia replied.

We were back in my New York, sitting on the bench. I felt like we were waiting for something, though Hestia had made no mention of what was going to happen next.

"Everything," I echoed, glancing at the bridge where Rhea had crash-landed in Hestia's alternative timeline. "So you must have a lot of plans."

"No," the goddess said, her tone firm. "I influence these events as little as possible. I believe that is why the Fates thought me worthy of receiving such a vision. I, alone among the gods, have the self-restraint to refrain from excessively interfering in the course of this narrative."

I wasn't certain, but I thought I heard a note of smug satisfaction in her voice. I glanced at her sidelong and asked, my voice lowered, "But you've intervened in some ways. I mean, you're here talking to me."

Hestia's human gaze flicked to me, then back to the river. She smiled. "I saw myself when I looked into the future, too. Anything I do, I was always going to do." She paused. "More or less."

"More or less?"

"There are a few circumstances which I, shall we say, helped along," Hestia said demurely. "For example, Camp Half-Blood was very slow to notice your aura. I _may_ have delivered an anonymous - what you call it? Tip-off? - to Chiron to speed that process up. I couldn't have my chosen mortal languishing in obscurity for _too_ long."

I laughed. "I feel so special."

The breeze rippled the surface of the river, making a boat tethered on the opposite side sway. The city noises filled the air, the sounds of life reassuring after the eerie stillness of that other timeline. The weather was warm, despite the cloud, but I felt a chill as I thought of returning to camp. I didn't know what to expect. The half-bloods would be within their rights to reject me, but if I was meant to work with them, they may be forced to accept my help. That could create an awkward limbo where I was their ally but not their friend.

"Don't worry about the half-bloods," Hestia apparently had the gift of telepathy as well as everything else. "In a conflict such as this, they will be glad to have all the help they can get."

I glanced at her. "I feel like there's something else I should ask, something I'm forgetting." I frowned. "It's just… I can't think of it."

Hestia gave me a calm stare. "Your mind is simply overwhelmed. It's a great deal for a little mortal like you to deal with."

"Gee, thanks," I huffed. Then, after a moment, I gave up and asked instead, "Will I see you again?"

"Perhaps. If it is necessary. But I cannot tell you what to do, Cyrus. Everyone in this war must forge their own path. That is the only way we will defeat Tartarus."

I nodded, and glanced over my shoulder. A curious sensation struck me as I looked around the streets, a feeling that I wouldn't be home for a long time. It came in a flash, not based on any logic or reason, and it faded as quick as it came. I'd forget it soon.

But for an instant, I knew I wouldn't come back until everything was done.

"My parents." I looked back at Hestia. "You said you'll look after them. Are— Do you promise? Will they be safe?"

She didn't speak, just looked me in the eye and nodded. I still felt some disbelief at everything else she'd told me, but I believed that nod, that unspoken promise. It wasn't much, but it was the last thing I needed before I went on my way.

I sighed. "Alright. What happens now?"

The goddess said nothing for a long moment. She stood, and looked down the road. "I suppose it's time that you were on your way."

I eyed her, then turned, following her gaze.

A familiar VW bus was trundling towards us, and though I couldn't make out the driver from here, I knew who he was.

"You planned ahead," I said to Hestia, somewhat accusingly. "What did you do, ring Argus to tell him I was coming back? What if I hadn't agreed? What would you have told him then?"

Hestia looked down at me, her eyes bright with amusement.

"You forget, Cyrus. I already know what is going to happen. I am merely waiting for everyone else to catch up."

* * *

The bus ride passed in an incoherent blur, as I chewed over the last couple hours of conversation. I tried to feel optimistic about what I was about to do, but failed abysmally. My unease mushroomed into a black cloud of self-doubt, as we drew near to Long Island Sound.

Eventually, we came to a rattling stop just within camp borders. I nodded my thanks to Argus as I got off, but didn't linger to talk. There was something about the guy that really repelled conversation.

I stood on Half-Blood Hill, Peleus dozing under the pine tree to my right. Despite my unease, as I looked down at camp for the first time in six months my initial emotion was an irrational sense of relief. I knew that Hestia had shown me a mere suggestion of a possible reality, but it was hard to shake off that image of the demigod haven being crushed by the armies of doom. To see it now, whole and safe, was like learning that reports of your house burning down had been grossly exaggerated.

And here I was, returned to the place that I had twice fled in acts of unrestrained anger. I felt oddly guilty as I made my way down the hill, as I reentered the story of the god's children. Not merely guilt, but also the awareness that I had abandoned this place. After all, Camp Half-Blood needed me more than I needed it, so to leave it was inevitably a selfish decision. It was with trepidation that I came off the hill and into the camp itself. I didn't know what kind of reception was waiting for me: surely Chiron and a few others would know I was coming, but I wasn't exactly expecting a welcome party.

I made my way straight to the Big House, keeping my head down and taking the long route around the volleyball court. I didn't want to run into any campers before I'd made amends with Chiron. Luckily everyone seemed to be busy with training, so I didn't have to face anyone.

It was only as I neared the farmhouse that I realised how odd that was. There was always at least a couple of people goofing off at the volleyball court or somewhere nearby. I'd never known _all_ the demigods to be training at once, but that was the case now.

A different sort of unease - fear, at what new dangers camp was facing - crept through the pit of my stomach. Maybe things were a lot worse than Hestia had told me. I sped up, hurrying the last few yards towards the Big House.

Chiron wasn't on the porch, and I went straight inside, heading for his office. I strode down the hall, noticing the silence that filled the house but not daring to consider it, and knocked on the office door.

"Come in," came the centaur's calm voice. I opened the door.

Chiron sat behind his modest desk, poring over numerous charts and papers that spread over the desk and even spilled onto the floor. He glanced up, then down, very briefly, and it was a second or two before he looked up again.

He just stared at me for a moment, confused. I eyed him, taking in his appearance. Chiron was not usually one to show strain, but now he seemed particularly worn. The dull blade of sleep deprivation had carved circles under his eyes and etched new lines in his face. His eyes were as alive with energy and intensity as ever, but his usual cheerfulness had faded, like a bright garment left in the sun for too long.

"Cyrus," he said finally.

"Chiron. Um. Hi."

The centaur continued to survey me. I didn't move or say anything. I felt like a bold student stumbling into the headmaster's office to proffer a paltry apology after playing truant for half the year.

Finally he sat back in his chair, and his expression relaxed. "Come in. Shut the door."

I edged forward and put my hand on the back of the chair that faced the desk. Chiron nodded, and I sat down.

"Hestia came to me," I said, after a moment. I wanted to be as clear and as straightforward as possible. "She told me everything she could. I know about her vision, about what could happen if I don't help, and— and I've decided that I've been selfish about all this."

I paused, unsure what to add. Chiron's gaze was steady, hard to read. He wasn't rejecting me, but he wasn't going to do the work of reconciliation for me, either. I searched for the right words, felt them slipping between my fingers. All the speeches I'd rehearsed on the bus journey evaporated into psychic vapour.

But I took a breath, and the right words came. "I want to say that I'm sorry. I've been stupid, selfish and I hadn't thought about… about everything. I was afraid, and angry, and I still am a little, but I'm getting over it and I've come back to help."

I fell silent entirely, sitting back in my chair. I wasn't going to plead with Chiron to forgive or let me back in. I could only tell him the truth and let him make his decision.

Chiron looked away from me, down at the documents that covered his desk.

(I wasn't exactly familiar with military operations, but they sure looked like battle plans to me. Big ones, at that.)

The silence stretched on. I dared not move, tense now with anticipation. As the seconds tiptoed past, I became increasingly convinced that I was wasting my time, that Chiron would sooner shake hands with Tartarus than welcome me back.

But then he began to chuckle, and I eyed him, in surprise and wariness. He held his head in one hand, laughing hard but quiet.

"What is it?" I asked, staring at him. "Did I make a fool of myself again? It's kind of a recurring thing."

He chuckled for a moment more, before shaking his head and looking up at me.

"Oh, no, Cyrus," he smiled at me. "I'm just amused by your attempt to take all the blame for our falling-out."

"What do you mean? I'm not saying it was _all_ my fault."

I stopped and thought. Then again, maybe I was. I've never been good at shifting my views in a moderate way. I tend to dash from one extreme to another like a fugitive spy running across rooftops. In this case it seemed that I'd gone from fully blaming the demigods to fully condemning myself.

(I _really_ need to learn how to do things in a balanced way.)

"I accept your apology, Cyrus," Chiron said. "I never wanted you to leave us. I let it happen because I saw that both you and many of the campers were too far apart to be reconciled by anything I could say."

I frowned. "Then am I wasting my time? Do you think they won't want me back here?"

"I didn't say that." Chiron's gaze flickered down to his papers, and he was silent for a moment. Then he continued, "As Hestia will have no doubt told you, things have gotten worse."

I tensed. I didn't like how I kept hearing of bad things without being told what those bad things actually _were_. It just made the unknown seem even menacing.

"How bad?" I asked. "What's happening?"

Chiron pushed a few pages into a folder, flipped it shut.

"We're dealing with pressure from both Tartarus and Rhea," he said, grim-faced. "After the events at the solstice, any agreements or possibilities of negotiation collapsed. The Rheans have declared war on both the Olympians and Tartarus. Their resources are limited, not particularly dangerous, but there's a problem."

He paused. I always find that a bad omen when someone does it right before telling me about a problem. It's the conversational equivalent of telling someone to duck. I didn't say anything.

"There are rumours," Chiron said, his dark tone telling me that these rumours were probably more than guesswork, "that the events in Alcatraz caused such a vast disturbance that the bonds of Rhea's prison were finally broken."

I started to speak immediately, alarmed, but he held up a hand to stop my panicked response.

"There is little evidence to confirm this idea," Chiron said, looking at me steadily. "I don't know if it's true. However, if it is, it would explain how the Rheans have been to able to start sending small groups of monsters to assault demigods around the country. We haven't had any casualties yet, but this increase in pressure on the half-bloods is making it more difficult for them to travel."

"But it could get worse," I said. "That's why it's an issue."

He nodded. "If Rhea has escaped her prison, it is only a matter of time before she and her servants launch a more aggressive campaign." He heaved a bone-deep sigh. "Then we'll be fighting _two_ wars."

I swallowed. This was plenty depressing, and it was the _first_ piece of bad news Chiron had given me. Where the hell was he going to go from here?

"There's more," the centaur said, as though to confirm my thoughts. He sat up straighter in his chair, and began sorting his papers into tidy piles. "A number of weapons caches and safe houses are distributed around the US. Some were built long ago, while many more were organised in the aftermath of the Second Titan War. They're emergency locations for half-bloods where they can obtain weapons, first-aid and even shelter."

He paused. I leaned forward, eager to hear the rest. Bad news should be dispensed as quickly as possible.

"However, these places have come under frequent attack in the last few months," Chiron went on, closing a drawer and sitting back. His tone had become cold and flat, like he was announcing a grim fact with which he was far too familiar. "Spectres and spirits sent by Jake Wilson have raided and destroyed forty per cent of our stockpiles. Most of them were unattended at the time, but in five cases there were demigods on-site at the time of the assault." He hesitated, almost imperceptibly, before finishing in a rush. "Three half-bloods have died in these attacks."

Everything within me felt cold, almost numb. I'd had a few brushes with death in the last two years, and I still didn't know to deal with it. I had no idea who these people were, but I'd encountered those demonic spectres before. Dying at their hands was probably even worse than being killed by an ordinary monster.

"Why is he doing this?"

Chiron shrugged. "You tell me. Why would Jake Wilson, obviously an excellent tactician, engage in this guerrilla warfare? What does he gain?"

I thought about it. Wilson was dangerous, but I always found him easy to understand, because he always had a motive. Every act had a specific aim. No effort was wasted.

"He's cutting off our support base," I said, barely noticing as I included myself in the half-blood collective. "He's doing what he can to isolate some of us, and reducing the amount of tools we have to counter any serious attack."

"Exactly," Chiron nodded. "I'm glad to see your hiatus hasn't blunted your edge."

I grinned, but that died like a dodo as I realised something else.

"There's more, isn't there?" I asked, scanning Chiron's face. I could see more bad news there as easily as I could see his eyes and nose.

"There is," he sighed again, even more heavily than before. "This is something unheard-of since the gods took their place on Olympus. Not even _Kronos_ dared to attempt it. Tartarus himself is putting pressure on the gods."

Chiron said this with the kind of tone that suggests the apocalypse had already come and gone, but I didn't understand."What do you mean?"

"Primordial entities have a particular advantage over Titans or Olympians," he said, drumming his fingers on the desktop. "The gods can normally sense any approaching presence, but beings like Tartarus are able to sneak up on them without detection, so long as the god is not in a place of power like Olympus. This ability has not, to my knowledge, ever been put to use in a conflict, but the son of Chaos has taken advantage of it several times in the last three months."

"How?"

"Through the shadows," Chiron said simply. "Every few weeks, he reaches out through the shadows with his ever-growing power and strikes at any gods who are exposed in the mortal world. No significant damage has been done - yet - but the message is very clear."

"No-one is safe," I breathed. "He's coming for all of us."

Silence fell as we contemplated this grim reality. Hestia's suggestions of dark occurrences had been so vague that I hadn't formed a concrete notion of what was going on. The scale of the dangers was far worse than I'd imagined, but the damages were not as bad as I'd feared.

"In any case," Chiron added, in a lighter tone, "we are doing what we can, and so far we are holding our own, but we need support from whoever can give it. This situation, along with the humility you're showing by coming back like this, will make it very easy for the half-bloods to accept you, I guarantee it. You have nothing to fear there."

"Oh," I said, a little flatly, but a wave of relief swept through me. It would have been supremely embarrassing to be rejected by the half-bloods after my big moment of honesty and acceptance. At least I had the assurance that they would _need_ me, though that wasn't the same as _welcoming_ me.

"In fact, you will be probably be put into action right away," Chiron added. I raised my eyebrows, and he nodded. "Some of Tartarus's forces are making their away towards a highly important location, and we're sending whoever we can to defend it. I think you could play an important role in that."

I shifted in my seat. I'd been happy to come back and fight, sure, but I hadn't realised that I'd have to face conflict so soon. Obviously I'd underestimated things. I hadn't understood that we were no longer preparing for a possible war. I hadn't, until now, recognised that the war was here.

"And where will we be going?" I asked nervously. "What's this important place we're defending?"

Chiron pushed his chair back, and for the first time since I'd come into the room, I realised that he was sitting in his wheelchair.

"One of the central locations on the broad map of the Greek world," he murmured. "The point at which one world is linked to another. The primary gateway to the Underworld."

"Where's that?"

Chiron looked at me, those ancient eyes deeper than any ocean. "Los Angeles."

* * *

I stood on the porch of the Big House, letting the breeze ruffle my hair. Evening had already been pressing in when I'd reached camp, and now night had fallen.

My reunion with Chiron had gone fine, but now I found myself wondering how to begin reconciling myself with the half-bloods themselves. Who I should I go to first? Normally it would have been Jane, but…

A pulse of hurt ran through me. Jane Welles had been my best friend at camp, up until the solstice. Then she'd changed, or, more accurately, something dark within her had come to the surface. Probably it had always been there, waiting for an opportunity to devour her better judgment. She'd turned against the gods, against everything, and I'd been the last person she'd spoken to before she'd left to join Wilson and his rebellion.

I looked towards the forest, as I thought of what she'd said.

 _They're meant to be the good guys, but as far as I can tell, we live in a world where there_ aren't _any good guys._

Just like Nico, Jane had left my life, though for different reasons. In truth, my flight from camp had also been a flight from that loss. Sometimes it's a lot easier to run than to accept. Maybe that was why she'd left, too.

I shook my head, as clouds above me cleared, letting the dim light of the crescent moon fill the sky. Nico was gone. Jane was gone. They had both meant more to me than I'd understood until they'd disappeared, but both had been turned to Tartarus's side. They had been defeated by the very darkness which they'd fought.

And yet.

That didn't mean they were gone forever. Nico, I knew, was still alive, which was more than I'd dared believe after what had happened at the Edge of the West. Jane was, presumably, also still in this world, unless she'd gotten into an argument with the wrong monster.

That thought gave me a little hope, not much, but enough. As long as there is life, there is the chance of redemption. It was unlikely, but I knew that if I kept believing in Nico and Jane, I would get an opportunity to save my friends from the dark - or, at least, to help them save themselves. I just had to be in the right place when that moment came.

I stepped off the porch, and headed down to the cabins.

I knew where I had to go first.


	4. Chapter Four

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

* * *

 _We all do what we can, and it has to be good enough… and if it isn't good enough, it has to do. Nothing is ever lost, Sarah. Nothing that can't be found._

–Stephen King, 'The Dead Zone'

* * *

I acted against my better judgement, my wariness, my introverted nature, and my sense of self-preservation.

I bit the cliched bullet, and marched into the Hermes cabin as though I owned the place.

The messy dwellings of the children of the god of thieves are always a hive of ADHD activity, so it took a few moments for people to actually notice me. I let the door swing shut behind me, and stood, looking around the room.

In all the time I'd spent here, I'd never really gotten used to the chaotic nature of the Hermes cabin. The random irrationality always put me off; yet my current mood of humility and acceptance cast the place in a rather more gold-tinted light. The three tiny Hermes brothers having a pillow fight a few metres away were charming, not irritating. The excited voices of two older Hermes children as they argued over an inane game of Monopoly was interesting, not suicidally tedious. The abandoned socks strewn everywhere like the debris from a department store explosion were—

Okay, well, I'll draw the line there.

Still, now that I'd faced my issues with the Greek world, I felt a lot less resentful about spending time in this pit of the dam—dyslexic.

(Hell, Hermes kids aren't the most observant. I got all the way through that monologue before they even noticed me.)

"Cyrus?" said Josh Lawrence, a wild-eyed son of Hermes who was never far from his sister. He was on the bunk bed nearest the door, and just now looked up from his comic to peer at me in half-focused astonishment.

"Hi," I nodded, as though I'd come back from a trip to the lake. His sister Sophie, on the upper bunk, spotted me, and reacted with rather more volume than her brother.

"Guys!" she exclaimed, in the sort of frantic tone that usually suggests an imminent nuclear strike. " _Guys_! Look! Quick! It's Cyrus! _Cyrus_! He's _here_!"

I'd always found her voice a little too high-pitched, but the benefit of such a screech was that it got people's attentions _fast_. She stopped talking, and a sudden hush dropped over the cabin, spreading from the beds nearest the door towards the back, as the Hermes kids had an uncharacteristic moment of unified concentration. A collective astonishment replaced the chaotic emotional atmosphere of a moment ago.

Oh, and they all started staring at me.

I swallowed. Suddenly the earlier inattention seemed preferable.

"Well," I enunciated, talking in a comfortable tone that communicated nothing except grinding discomfort. "Hi."

I'd wanted to catch their attention, but just like everything else you ever wish for, it was different now that I had it. There was twenty or thirty demigods watching me, and all the words I'd rehearsed in my head had vanished into the ether, fled from my mind with malicious glee.

Still, perhaps I had some credit on file with the goddess of luck, because Anna Fields came to my rescue. I hadn't seen her in the cabin when I came in, but now she walked up to me, having apparently appeared from the ether.

(Maybe she was bringing my forgotten words back?)

"Cyrus," she said, stopping a couple of metres away from me. "What's going on? What are you doing here?"

I swallowed again, trying to ignore the interrogatory gazes trained on me, and focussed on the Hermes counsellor. Ever since I'd first met Anna, she'd always seemed a little out of the moment, as though there was something more diverting that she was waiting to do. Now, though, Anna's blue eyes were clear, and her face and aura were tenser than I'd ever seen it. It didn't take pure sight to see that she, too, had been touched by the gathering darkness of Tartarus's war.

"Hi, Anna," I said. "I'm back."

Murmurs of interest began to hum amongst the half-bloods, but Anna raised one hand for silence. Her siblings subsided. She stepped closer to me, her altered gaze fixed on me. "What do you mean?"

I started to reply, then stopped. I'd never imagined that I might one day falter before Anna Fields's gaze, yet here I was, looking into eyes that were windows on a soul which had been battered by a storm of harsh experience.

I wondered if the counsellor would have caught sight of whatever ghosts haunted her now, had I never abandoned camp.

"Anna," I said, meeting her gaze as my thoughts came back together. "I know I ran away from camp, from all of you, but I've changed my mind about, well, everything. I've been shown some truth that I never imagined, and I see that I was misunderstanding a lot, more than I ever expected. I'm sorry for leaving, and I want to rejoin camp. I've already spoken to Chiron."

I glanced around the room, "You probably have no respect for me, after what happened last year, but I'm not asking for respect. I'm just looking to return to my post, and I hope you can accept that."

The daughter of Hermes eyed me. Her aura had turned colder since December, the colours less enthusiastic, but it hadn't lost its sense of encouraging calm. Anna may have been damaged, but she wasn't broken, nowhere close.

The Hermes kids were intent, their gazes flicking back and forth between the two of us. None of them spoke, or looked like they wanted to. Whatever Anna said next, I saw, would decide the situation for them.

"After the solstice, I hated you," she said steadily. Somehow I didn't find this an encouraging start. "A lot of us did. We didn't understand how you could just _leave_ , like none of us mattered to you.

"But the months passed, and things just got worse. It's been like a hurricane, building up steam as it gets closer to shore. Eventually, I think we all realised that we can't blame this on you, just because you're mortal, just because you made mistakes. Maybe you made things worse in some ways, but you've done a lot of good too. No _one_ person is responsible for the war with Tartarus."

"Except maybe Jake Wilson," Josh muttered, drawing a few murmurs of disgruntled assent.

For the first time since I walked into the cabin, Anna smiled.

"And anyway, Cyrus," she said. "You're taking yourself _way_ too seriously. You really think you've caused so much trouble that _we're_ going to turn you away? I don't think so, kid. The Hermes cabin is home to all the problem children in the Greek world. Just be glad you're enough of a problem to get in here."

"So I can stay?"

"Hades, Cyrus," Anna said, taking a step back. "As far as I'm concerned, you were just pulling a hide-and-seek prank on us. Right, guys?"

* * *

I was reintegrated into the Hermes cabin within a matter of minutes. Most of them were more interested in telling me their battle stories than hearing about my encounter with Hestia. The worst reaction I got was a few people being jealous that I'd gotten so much time off from combat training. Someone even tried to rob me by the end of the night, and in the Hermes cabin that's a sign of goodwill and respect.

(I can't believe I just said that.)

It was with great relief that I fell asleep in my old cabin bed for the first time in over six months. My mythological rehabilitation was well underway. I had the support of my cabin secured, and finally I felt like it was _my_ cabin. The Hermes kids were a gang of miscreants, rogues and conmen - and hell, so was I.

Unfortunately, my soaring good spirits vanished into the night while I slept. When I woke, my relief was forgotten, replaced now by those ugly beasts fear and unease.

Because it wasn't enough to restore my relationship with the Hermes cabin. That was only the start. Now, I had to face the whole of camp. This concept hit me like a waterlogged sandbag about two seconds after I woke up. In the emotion of the previous day, I hadn't even thought about what it would be like when I stepped back into the dining pavilion, with all of camp's demigods watching. That pavilion was the closest thing Camp Half-Blood had to a royal court. Anyone who was staying at camp inevitably presented themselves there at least once a day, and no-one ever went unnoticed. When a new camper first went there, it was a moment of initiation, always made easier by the receptive attitude of the half-bloods to newcomers.

I had no idea what kind of attitude would greet my return. But I knew for certain that my entrance to the pavilion would make or break my chances for reintegration into camp.

I lay in bed for a while, thinking this over. I could let things take their course, without trying to make an impression on the demigods. That could be a recipe for disaster. If any of the half-bloods thought that I was just sauntering back into their home and pretending that nothing had happened, I was screwed.

Instead, I needed to make the right impression from the start and get my redemption thing over with in a flash. That, too, could go horribly wrong, but at least I'd have a chance.

I got up, dressed, and headed to the pavilion with my cabin. As we made our way through camp, as we'd done so many times before, I felt a sense of pure companionship with these children of the god of travellers. They accepted me unconditionally, and the attitudes of the harsher cabins, like Athena or Ares, would never change that.

As usual, us Hermes kids were the last to enter the pavilion. The other cabins were already at their respective tables, while Chiron and Rachel Dare sat at the top table. Mr. D was conspicuously absent. I slowed my pace, drifting to the very end of my group. As we moved towards our table, we passed the fire at the centre of the pavilion. I stopped next to it, while the Hermes demigods went and sat down.

I stood very still for a moment, just looking down at the fire. It reminded me of Hestia, warm and reassuring, and of the blessing she'd given me, so long ago and yet, to me, so recently. I told myself that, no matter what mistakes I'd made in the past or would inevitably make in the future, she had chosen to give me her aura because she had faith in me. She knew what I could do, what I had the ability to achieve, and she believed in me.

And in that moment, as I gathered myself to face the half-bloods, I began to believe in myself. For the first time since I'd seen a Hydra in Central Park, I felt confident that I could take on whatever challenge came my way. I'd made some bad decisions, I'd been selfish and irrational, but I was facing into those failures of judgement.

I was learning from my mistakes, and I would never stop.

I looked up from the fire, and found that the whole of Camp Half-Blood was staring at me in mute disbelief.

The place was really full. Normally camp operated at about eighty percent capacity, but judging by the numbers assembled at these tables, we were near full attendance. I glanced around, searching for certain faces.

At the Poseidon table, Percy Jackson sat alone. His mouth was half-open as he stared at me, his eyes wide. He looked like he wanted to shout a greeting, but he was holding himself back. At the Hecate table, I spotted Olivia Hartnell. Her green eyes were bright with interest and surprise, and when I met her gaze, she inclined her head at me with a smile.

I looked at the Ares table. Several of them were glaring at me in open resentment, but I ignored them and met Kevin Andrews's eyes. My stoic Ares friend was comprehensively astonished. He'd frozen halfway through lifting a glass of orange juice to his mouth, and his eyebrows were trying to escape into his hairline. If I hadn't felt like I was going to throw up, I would've found his expression funny. As it was, I just noted the new pair of glasses resting on his nose.

My gaze flicked towards the empty Nyx table. Sadness and anger ran through me, and I clenched my fists. Just because I'd come back didn't mean Jane was going to be restored to us, to me.

But I had to keep going.

I checked the top table. Chiron's expression was neutral, his gaze fixed on me, while beside him Rachel looked rather impressed, as though she couldn't believe my nerve. I knew the Oracle liked audacious, dramatic acts. They appealed to her sense of theatre. I guess presenting myself in front of all these demigods like this qualified.

Finally, I turned to the Athena table.

The sheer number of super-geniuses at that table always intimidated me. That much wisdom in one place made me feel like there was nothing I could say which hadn't already been considered and catalogued. There was at least fifteen there today, all of them pointing their scarily intelligent gazes in my direction. I ignored the almost physical pressure as best I could, and focussed on two specific demigods.

I looked at Annabeth Chase. Her grey eyes were hard to read at the best of times, and now her expression was impenetrable. I didn't detect any hostility, at least, but that didn't guarantee anything. She might have been plotting how best to kill me, or planning a welcome party. The odds seemed pretty even to me.

Finally, at last, I faced Zack Walker.

The son of Athena was sitting very still, his face as unreadable as Annabeth's. His arms were folded, but I didn't see the narrowed eyes or curled lip that I'd been expecting. He was just watching me, waiting. I was surprised. I'd expected him to be on the attack, trying to destroy me in front of everyone before I could even begin to rebuild. Instead, the son of Athena was totally passive. Either he was waiting for his moment or—

But no. That was too optimistic a possibility to voice.

I drew in a long breath, and began.

"Morning, all," I said, as casual as possible, looking around at everyone without actually meeting anyone's eyes. "You're probably wondering what the hell I'm doing here." _So am I_ , I thought ."I wanted to talk before the day starts. I know we're busy with defending the Underworld and everything, and I want to get something out of the way."

I paused. In a rare moment for the Camp Half-Blood pavilion, I had everyone's undivided attention. Not even the Hermes kids were talking.

"Some of you will be happy to see me," I went on, clasping my hands behind my back. "Some of you won't. It's the same thing to me. I haven't come back here to be treated as a great guy or to be hailed as a hero. That's your job. It's definitely not mine."

I closed my eyes for a second, breathing away my nerves.

"I've made a lot of mistakes," I said, raising my voice, opening my eyes. "I've made more mistakes than not in my time here. That's the truth. When I left here at Christmas, I didn't want to accept the fact that I don't know everything, that I'm not always right, that I'm out of my depth. I was convinced that my logic was always sound. What I didn't understand was that sometimes we think we're being logical, even when we're being irrational and emotional."

The atmosphere was starting to change. At first the half-bloods had been listening out of mere astonishment, but now their expressions were changing. They were getting interested, because I was humbling myself right in front of them.

They hadn't exactly seen much of that from me before now.

"It's not only that I've made bad choices," I pushed on, getting more animated. "I was afraid. I know I can't do the things you can, and I was afraid of being hurt, afraid of losing, afraid of looking bad, afraid of _dying_."

The silence in the pavilion was absolute. If I closed my eyes again, I could believe that I was alone. Yet even in the stillness I could feel the half-bloods' shifting mood, as they tried to decide how to react.

"All these things are true for me, and for all these things, I can only say that I'm sorry."

I paused. Now that I'd gained the half-bloods' interest, it was time to establish the tone for the renewal of my agreement with the gods and their servants. It wasn't enough to have their interest, I needed to get their respect.

"But as true as these things are for _me_ ," I said, looking from half-blood to half-blood, meeting gazes, my fear gone, "they are just as true for most of _you_."

There was a collective intake of breath, and everything became very tense very quickly. Only the demigods' sheer curiosity as to what the hell I was doing held them back. Half of the Ares and Athena cabins looked close to pelting me with their crockery. Chiron watched me with a fearful expression, as though preparing to ride in and deliver me from the clutches of the lynch mob. I enunciated my next words as though they were the combination to disarm a bomb.

"How many of you have been afraid, and made a choice out of fear? How many of you have shied away from a challenge for a selfish reason? How many of you have been not the best person you could possibly be?"

The atmosphere shifted again, like the wind altering direction in a storm. I sensed the demigods' tension transforming into self-consciousness, even embarrassment. I met Chiron's eyes for a second, and he nodded. The centaur knew this was the best, albeit not the _safest_ , thing to do.

"The truth is, we all make mistakes, and poor choices," I turned slowly on the spot, addressing the entire pavilion. "Some of us make bigger mistakes than others, some of us never make world-changing mistakes, but that doesn't change the reality that we are all _human_."

I let those words fill the air for a moment. It was hard to read the half-bloods now: they were curious, interested, but with my emotions thumping, they looked like little more than a sea of faces.

"And so," I dropped my voice and my eyes, staring at my shoes for a moment, "what I'm trying to say is that I've made mistakes because I'm human and flawed. You've all made mistakes too, because despite your godly blood you're still human and flawed. I thought that my _lack_ of godly blood made me saner than any of you, and some of you thought that your mythological heritage made you wiser than me. None of this matters. We're all human, we're all standing on the same rock in the middle of space. So," I looked up, and met Zack's gaze, "we might as well work together."

I fell silent.

A slight breeze was rustling my clothes, and in the death-still quiet of the pavilion it seemed unnaturally loud. The crackle and whisper of the fire beside me, too, was impossibly noisy, as I waited for the half-bloods to break their silence.

My gaze didn't move from Zack. He had always been chief among the anti-mortal half-bloods, and I knew that if I could convince him to accept me, my place at camp would be secure. To call him my nemesis would be an exaggeration - Jake Wilson had gotten that job long ago - but I knew he was a tipping point.

And that was the whole purpose of my dramatic speech. It wasn't enough, I'd decided, for me to blend back into camp and do what I could to help out when an opportunity was thrown my way. If I was to fulfil my role as Lightbringer the way Hestia intended, I had to engage in the process. I had to make shit _happen_. It didn't matter how little I wanted to do it. I needed to take control of events when necessary, rather than allowing the forces of darkness to shape the narrative into whatever form they liked.

And to do that, I had to make myself a _part_ of camp, not just someone who happened to stay there, not just the awkward mortal who happened to be useful now and then.

The silence stretched along with my nerves, both holding out far longer than I thought possible, before Zack got to his feet. He moved away from his table and walked towards me, his gaze flickering between me and the empty space between us. His aura was swirling around him, but it didn't have the agitated quality which I was used to seeing when he spoke to me. His usual supercilious expression, too, was gone.

Finally, he came to a halt, about two metres away, and met my gaze.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you back here," Zack said, barely loud enough for me to hear, his tone unreadable. "I thought you were a glory-hunter, who'd realised that he couldn't play games and win in this world."

He paused, not looking away from me. I just stood there. I had nothing else I could possibly say or do. It was up to him.

"But you've come back," he went on, raising his voice. "When I saw you standing there, I thought you'd gotten bored, and returned to try to rekindle your legend."

Zack stopped, and looked past me to stare into the fire. I imagined Hestia standing behind me, her arms folded and an eyebrow raised in question. He swallowed.

"But I was wrong."

For the first time, whispers began to ripple through the watching half-bloods, murmurs of surprise, even excitement. The spell of my stunt entrance was breaking, but its effects were starting to take hold.

"In all the time that you were here, you never once admitted that you might be wrong about something," Zack went on, looking back at me. "Until this moment, you always seemed to me to have total confidence in your own judgement."

I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing. Thinking back, I knew he was right, though I hadn't realised it at the time.

"So I was surprised when I heard… everything you just said," the son of Athena said. "And it made me think. It made me understand. You admit that you've made mistakes, you acknowledge you're human and flawed, and my reply is that I'm no better. You thought your judgement was always perfect. So did I."

The silent shock that followed these words was greater than any of the demigods' reactions yet. They'd been plenty astonished by my humility, but this moment of abnegation from Zack was like seeing Hades dressed up as Santa Claus.

"I've never admitted that I'm wrong, either," he was talking loudly now, his voice carrying around the whole pavilion. "I've never acknowledged my mistakes. But the last few months, all the failed strategies, all the battles, and now you here, doing something I never imagined you'd do." He bowed his head for a moment, and in that moment I saw that Zack had changed at least as much as me. The war had scoured and stripped him of all pretence, and left him all the stronger for it.

Zack looked up again, and for the first time since I'd known him, he smiled freely.

"So welcome back."

He offered me his hand, and by the time I clasped it, the half-bloods' raucous cheers were already filling the air.


	5. Chapter Five

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

* * *

 _Brand: The Lazarus missions._

 _Cooper: Sounds cheerful._

 _Brand: Lazarus came back from the dead._

 _Cooper: But he had to die in the first place._

–'Interstellar'

* * *

Reunions don't last long at Camp Half-Blood.

I had maybe five or ten minutes of joyous welcomes and enthusiastic congratulations, and then Chiron brought us all back to reality with a nice hard thump by standing up and starting to talk about the impending apocalyptic battle.

"I'm very pleased that you're welcoming Cyrus back," he said, looking around the pavilion with a teacherly air. "However, we must now move along to the matter of the impending assault on the entrance to the Underworld."

That shut everyone up pretty darn fast. Chiron waited for the final murmurs of excitement to fade out before continuing.

"As we speak, Tartarus's forces are massing at three locations around Los Angeles, hidden by the Mist," he said, his flat tone indicating the start of a prepared speech. "All these places are within ten miles of the main entrance to the Underworld. Lord Hades has reached the obvious conclusion that the son of Chaos is about to attempt a direct invasion of the Land of the Dead."

Chiron paused to pick up some papers that lay next to his coffee cup. I exchanged uneasy glances with Anna.

"Each of Tartarus's three forces has a purpose," Chiron continued, reading from a page covered in tight handwriting. "The battalion nearest the Underworld entrance is a massive group of spectres from the furthest reaches of the Fields of Asphodel. The second force, located a quarter-mile away from the first, is a jumbled collection of monsters. Some of them haven't been seen since the Titan War. The third force is a haphazard but highly dangerous group of dark spirits, led by the harbinger of misery himself, Dolos."

I gulped.

(I sure picked a great time to come strolling back into camp.

Or, more accurately, _Hestia_ picked a great time to come strolling back into my life.)

"All of this information has been provided by spirits and minor gods who are monitoring the situation. Many ghosts died to bring us this data," Chiron added. He drew in a deep breath, as though preparing to jump into a bath of ice water, before saying, "This morning, they informed me that the situation has taken a turn for the worse."

It always amazed me how fast the pavilion's atmosphere could change, especially when it was full. A few minutes ago, things had been nothing short of festive, and now it felt like we were at a mass wake.

Chiron's expression was dark. "Last night, the battalions stopped massing, and began preparing to march. Just one hour ago, I learned that Tartarus's troops have begun to advance toward the Underworld."

Quite a few people, including some at the Hermes table, let out cries of alarm. I stayed quiet, but I was filled with dread as Chiron's words sank in. This was big. We weren't talking minor skirmishes in the streets of New York with overpowered ghosts. This was full-scale war. I'd always wondered what it would be like to see a real battle, a clash between two great forces in a struggle for some huge prize.

I was about to find out.

"Luckily, we have time on our side," the centaur spoke more loudly to be heard over the growing murmurs. "The progress of the battalions is slow, and the gods are doing what they can to delay their advance. Rhea, it seems, does not have sufficient forces to make an impact, and is not involving herself in this battle, so we face only one enemy. Hades has undead ready to drive back the invasion, should Tartarus breach the Underworld's outer defences.

"However, it is preferable that the attackers are kept from passing even the outmost door to the Underworld. Hence, it is crucial that we mobilise as quickly as possible. Two children of Hecate are on-site now, ready to receive us via quanta transmission. We need as many heroes as possible to engage in this defence. I ask that two-thirds of every cabin present themselves at the Big House in one hour."

Chiron paused, taking a breath, then added in a calmer tone, "You are going to be naturally afraid, but I promise you that if we fight well and believe in each other, we will get through this danger with very little cost. This is what your training is for. All you need to do is have faith in your abilities."

He glanced over at the Athena table, and beckoned to Annabeth. She literally threw herself out of her seat, and hurried over to the centaur. Without another word, the two mythological veterans left the pavilion, no doubt to have a strategy meeting in Chiron's office.

Hurriedly, as though they'd been caught skipping class, everyone started moving, discussing these developments with frantic concentration. I didn't move yet, just sat still, feeling overwhelmed. Things had moved so _fast_. Before Christmas, Tartarus had been little more than a shadowy figure pulling strings and making menacing gestures, a pantomime ghoul who'd never seemed truly real. In the space of six months, he'd become an all-consuming danger to the gods, to the point that he was ready to threaten the place so many feared entering: the Land of the Dead.

What, I thought grimly, would the world be like at the _end_ of the year?

* * *

While I wasn't exactly looking forward to the battle with the forces of darkness, the imminent danger had a benefit. It made everyone completely forget about me. Most of the half-bloods just started talking to me like I'd never even left camp. Hell, most of them didn't have the _time_ to talk to me. A few greeted me as we dashed around camp getting ready, but only three people stopped for actual conversation.

The first was Alice Evans, who I ran into when I was collecting my archery kit from the firing range. The daughter of Apollo was practicing her marksmanship there, although someone needed to tell her that she was wasting her time. You don't need to _practice_ when you're a born crack shot.

"You're back!" she exclaimed, dropping her bow as soon as she saw me. She gave me a welcoming hug, gripping tightly for a moment as though I might still vanish, before stepping back to survey me.

"I was so disappointed when you left," Alice said, her blue eyes bright with excitement. "I was the only one left from the Sea of Chaos mission. I felt like I was the only one who knew what we're really facing."

"Well, you can relax now," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Now there's a whole _two_ people at camp who know what we're facing."

Alice shook her head, as she picked up her bow. "But what happened? What made you come back?"

"It turns out that I have a patron."

"A patron? Who?"

"Hestia."

Alice's reaction was similar to all the other half-bloods who I'd mentioned Hestia to. She stopped, blinked, and looked at me as though waiting for me to laugh at my own joke.

"Hestia," she echoed, her tone completely flat. "As in, one of the original Olympians. Sister of Zeus. Daughter of Kronos."

I nodded, trying not to laugh. It was weird seeing Alice so flummoxed.

"She's your _patron_?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's because of my whole pure sight thing. She kind of… gave me her blessing, a long time ago. I guess she felt responsible for me, because she came to my home and talked me into coming back."

Alice gave me a searching glance. Her gaze was intense when she wanted it to be, more piercing than almost any other I'd encountered.

"She just _talked_ you into it?" she said, frowning.

I swallowed. I hadn't told anyone about Hestia's time-travelling, super-powered foresight deal, and I wasn't going to. It was too risky. She hadn't warned against it, but she hadn't needed to. I knew if Tartarus got wind that the goddess of the hearth had such knowledge of the present and the future, the shadow god's response could be catastrophic. Hestia's foreknowledge of this shadow war was possibly the Olympians' only advantage. I couldn't jeopardise that.

Still, this meant I had to lie - or at least conceal things from - my friends. The Hermes kids had been too excited to notice the big gaping hole in my story, but Alice was way too sharp to miss it.

"She did," I said, smiling, not to convince Alice, but to communicate that she had to trust me. "Hestia's very convincing. We'd be here all day if I told you all the arguments she made."

Alice held my gaze for a moment, searching, making sure. I looked back, trying to tell her without words that this was all I could give her.

Finally, to my relief, she nodded. "Makes sense. You can't argue with the hearth."

* * *

Ten minutes later, I was coming out of the armoury, having just reclaimed my old set of super-light armour, when I was almost trampled by a passing horde of Ares kids. Well, it seemed like a horde, with their bristling weaponry and tank-like armour, but there was only ten of them. Just one looked my way.

"There you are," Kevin said exasperatedly, letting his siblings go on as he stopped in front of me. "I've been looking for you all morning. I was beginning to think someone had killed you and thrown you into the woods."

"No-one would ever do that," I said. "Didn't you see my big homecoming welcome? I'm a hero to these people." Then I frowned. " _Why_ are you wearing glasses?"

The son of Ares rolled his eyes, which were fronted by sturdily-framed, perfectly round glasses. In-keeping with Kevin's aesthetic, they looked tough enough to withstand a major ballistic detonation. "Yeah. Turns out I'm shortsighted. I need these to see the marauding armies coming." He paused. "But with the armies getting so big now it doesn't take much to pick them out."

He stepped towards me, and we shared in a manly hug, clapping one other on the back with overdramatic aplomb, as though we were reassuring ourselves of each other's presence. Yet there was an emotion beneath it that was real, that was beyond anything we could say.

"I'm glad you're back, seriously," Kevin said, sombre, as we stepped apart. He eyed me, his expression showing both happiness and concern. "I never really thought that you'd be here again. I mean, I know how you are once you make a decision. It takes a lot to change your mind." He paused, his eyes flickering around, before he added, "I won't ask you what it took, but I'm guessing it was something to do with your, you know, destiny, and… just know that I'll always be here to help you deal with it, no matter what. If you need that."

"If I need that?" I echoed.

I thought of Hestia, and the hole in time's fabric, and the simulation of a world where I'd never existed. I thought of Tartarus, in all his dark glory, burning power his lifeblood, and I thought of the prophecy, and the feeble notion that I could somehow weave the shadow's shroud.

"Hell, man," I said, grinning. "I'll always need that."

* * *

The third person I spoke to was the last one I expected.

I was hurrying through camp toward the Big House. I passed the Athena cabin, and a moment later Zack's voice called, "Cyrus! Hold on!"

I looked over my shoulder to find him jogging up to me, a sheaf of blue paper under his arm. He nodded, disturbingly cheerful. I nodded back, a little wary, a little amused. We walked on, and he asked me, without any hint of condescension, "How have you been?"

"Okay," I said. "I mean, apart from missing out on some awesome apocalyptic battles and all. How about you?"

We left the cabins behind, heading past the lake. "Apart from _not_ missing out on some awful apocalyptic battles, I've been okay. I haven't had so much to do in the last few months. Annabeth took up full command of the cabin in February, and now I'm her assistant."

There was a familiar note of bitterness in his tone, which somehow reassured me. I wouldn't want Zack to be _completely_ changed. "So what do you do now?"

"A lot of logistical work," he said, shaking his head. His blonde hair was shorter now. "Organising the other Athena kids. Preparing reports. I've become the half-blood equivalent of an army clerk."

I nodded, with genuine sympathy. Zack was not the kind of personality that fitted well into that kind of small role. He was destined for running corporations or negotiating diplomatic agreements.

(Well. Maybe not _diplomatic_ agreements.)

We walked on in silence, both reluctant to steer the conversation in the inevitable direction. Finally, as we neared the Big House, he stopped under a tree, and motioned me to listen for a moment.

"I have to give these to Annabeth, but I wanted to say something before we leave for the battle." His grey eyes scanned me, his greyer aura very slightly disturbed by a ripple of white. "Do you know the real reason why I fought you so much?"

I had my own thoughts on that point, but I decided it was more diplomatic to keep them to myself. I shook my head.

"We Athena children are thought of as the chosen ones," he said, frowning down at me. He was at least a head taller. "The truth is, we have our own challenges. We don't have any superpowers, unlike most other half-bloods. Wisdom is useful, but there are times when it just isn't as good as a _real_ magical ability. We don't talk about it, but that's frustrating. Sometimes… sometimes we feel like we're not much better than mortals."

He paused, straining to select the best words. "I didn't like an _actual_ mortal working with us, because I was afraid you would be _better_ than me. And if a normal mortal is better, then what am I? All my demigod heritage would be worth nothing." Zack shook his head, and pushed himself to smile. "In the cold light of this war, it sounds foolish. but that is the truth."

I met his gaze. I could see his shame at his own pride, but also I saw that the same pride drove him to improve, to become _better_ , so that he wouldn't have to be below anyone, ever.

Not so different from me, in a way.

"Hell, man," I said, sighing. "There's nothing foolish about the truth."

* * *

I've always admired the half-bloods' discipline. Everyone was assembled, on time, outside the Big House, without a single latecomer. Most high school teachers would die to get that kind of punctuality from a gang of teenagers.

We stood around in groups loosely corresponding to our cabins. There were easily seventy half-bloods, about half the camp. Despite the fact that most of us were ADHD-prone teenagers, there was very little idle chatter. The atmosphere was simply tense with concentration.

Chiron stood on the porch, his expression steely, seemingly unshakeable. His arms were folded, and his horse's legs tensed, as though about to bolt. Finally, when the last few half-bloods arrived and joined their cabin-mates, he raised his hands for silence.

"All of you, listen closely. The situation at the Underworld remains unchanged," he said, his voice steady. "Tartarus's forces are on their way, but you have enough time to get there first and establish a defence. The Hecate children will send you to Los Angeles in just a few moments, via quanta transmission."

"What _is_ this transmission thing?" I hissed to Josh, who stood next to me.

"Some trick the Hecate cabin developed," he whispered back, his greenish aura flickering with tension. "Some magic-users break us up into packets of energy and send us to our destination, where some other magic-users will put us back together again instantaneously. It's like the way you send data in packets over a network, except with people."

I stared at him in alarm. That sounded like a surefire recipe for disaster. What if we got put back together wrong? I don't like my face much but it's the one I've had since I was a kid. I'm _used_ to it. But I guess there wasn't many options, now that all the shadow-wielding demigods were lost to us. We had to get to the Underworld fast, so packet data it was.

Chiron was talking strategy. "I've discussed this with Annabeth, and we believe that Tartarus's plan is to wear us down with the spectres, who will reach the Underworld first. After that, the monsters will attempt to force open gaps in our defences and break up our formations, making it a simple matter for the group of dark spirits to finish you off."

(I couldn't help noticing the little switch from "us" to "you".)

"Your aim, then, is to counter the spectres and monsters as efficiently as possible, and be prepared to face the spirits," Chiron said, his gaze flickering from demigod to demigod. "You've trained for these conflicts. All you need to do is believe in yourself and the people next to you. If you hold out long enough, Hecate herself will join you and finish the battle. Your field commander is, as usual, Annabeth, while Percy and Clarisse are her captains. Are there any questions?"

I thought someone might be surprised that a _goddess_ was turning up to fight with us, but no-one spoke. The breeze whistled around us. Up above, the sky was still overcast. With a chill that went through my bones, I noticed the thin shadows every one of us was casting. I wondered, paranoiacally, if Tartarus could be listening to us, even here, in the greatest half-blood sanctuary that had ever been constructed.

But no. I dismissed the idea. I was just nervous. Paranoid. Probably.

(But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not about to die.)

"Very well," Chiron said, giving us a tense nod. "Good luck. May the Fates be with you." He heaved a breath. "May they be with us _all_."

He nodded to a few half-bloods - Hecate kids, I'd know the aura anywhere - who stood on the steps of the Big House. They raised their hands, those auras sparking with energy as they drew on their powers.

Then, before I could brace myself, everything was green blinding light, filling every space, and every space between spaces.

* * *

Don't tell Nico, but it turns out that quanta transmission is a hell of a lot better than shadow-travel.

From shadow-travel, I was used to creepy howling tunnels of wind and darkness which usually made me feel like my face was about to be forcibly removed. I'd gotten used to it, but it wasn't what you'd call _pleasant_.

The Hecate way, by contrast, was a single moment of blinding light, and then—

We were all standing in Los Angeles.

I stumbled. Being displaced thousands of miles in a nanosecond is always going to be pretty disorientating, no matter how tough you are. My stomach churned as I tried to adjust to the sheer scale of the jump. Around me, half-bloods groaned or fell to their knees. I breathed in deeply, keeping upright. Only after a few moments could I look up.

We stood in the middle of Valencia Boulevard. Close to us, gold letters were etched in a black marble archway: _DOA Recording Studios_. Underneath, stencilled on the glass doors: _No Solicitors, No Loitering, No Living_.

I gulped.

The whole demigod troop stood around me. The Hecate kids were good: everyone seemed to be in one piece, with no sign of any missing limbs or heads. At least that part had gone right. Probably it was the last thing today that would go smoothly.

I'd barely finished collecting my bearings when Annabeth's sharp voice, made even more piercing by the agency of a small loudhailer, filled the air.

"Okay, don't stand around, listen up. Ares, Hephaestus and Athena, you stay on this street. Assemble in rows across the road. Don't let anything past. Apollo, look for vantage points, any good places to pick off monsters from afar," Annabeth strode among us, handing out orders without hesitation, the demigods obeying with equal haste. I took in our surroundings as she talked.

Even here on the other side of the _continent_ , that iron-grey cloud hung over us like an unimaginative shroud. Strong unease curdled in my gut as I stared at the overcast sky. What was causing this ungodly weather? Even more disturbing, how in the name of the Fates could it be spreading so far?

I looked up and down the street. Our entire group had appeared at once, but there were no sounds of alarm or anger from passing motorists. Hell, we were the only people on the whole _street_. I listened, but I heard only Annabeth's tense voice and the urgent movements of demigods moving into position. The road was deserted.

I shook my head, disbelieving, as I followed the momentum of the half-bloods around me and moved down the road. Where _was_ everyone? It was the middle of the day. Surely a little unusual weather hadn't had _this_ bad an impact on the sensitive Californians?

Then I felt it. A cold, metallic dark power was in the air. It was so _present_ it was easy to overlook, like an ambient noise that you only notice when it stops. It was an atmosphere without sound or smell; yet to me it was more tangible than the warm air or even the concrete beneath my feet. It weighed on my mind, oppressing my emotions, making me want to get away. Far away.

It was the grim primordial power of Tartarus. My Jedi senses were jangling. His presence was strong in this place. It wasn't just his minions who were coming to break open the Underworld. The lord of shadows himself was working against us.

"Hermes!" Annabeth's sharp voice cut through my reverie. I jumped, and opened my eyes, which I didn't remember closing. "Hermes cabin, disperse through the streets and notify me via IM as soon as you see hostile forces approaching."

My cabin-mates and I had been busy standing and staring up till now, but we nodded and scattered. I turned to follow Anna up the street, not wanting to wander on my own, but Annabeth called, "Cyrus. Stay with me."

I turned to look at her. She stood by the entrance to the Underworld, and nodded at me as I met her gaze. "It's good to have you back. Your pure sight is very useful. Stay close to me, I'll need you."

I stared at her for a second, then nodded, walking up her, watching everything, or trying to.

Percy was dashing around the street, organising the ranks of warrior half-bloods. At the very top and bottom of the road, other half-bloods were throwing together magical defences with bits of chalk and what power they could dredge from their pulsing auras. Sparks of power flew through the air as they ignited the barriers, but I could feel Tartarus's power dampening their attempts, making them look like they were trying to light a fire in the rain.

Closer to where Annabeth and I stood, the less warlike demigods were forming into ranks. The less dangerous the half-blood, the closer they were to the doors to the studio. The more warrior-like the demigod, the nearer they were to the top of the street.

A thought struck me. I looked at Annabeth, frowning. She was scanning the street like me, her gaze darting around, following patterns even I couldn't make out.

"Isn't this—" I started to say.

"A risky strategy? Obviously," she said, looking at me briefly.

"You're putting all your offensive strength at the frontline," I said, understanding Annabeth's plan as the half-bloods finishing arranging themselves. It was a long, wide street, and a good sixty of the children of the gods were tightly arranged, forming barriers of bronze and determination. "But that means, if the monsters break through, there won't be much resistance to stop them getting to the doors." I looked at the ever-ready daughter of Athena. "What if they're stronger than we realise? If they pass the front rows…"

She turned to face me directly, and, to my surprise, smiled.

"You haven't lost your edge, Cyrus," Annabeth said. "I knew you'd be back. You need this as much as it needs you."

While I blinked in confusion at that, she opened a Velcro pocket on her belt, taking out a torch. She stepped close to the glass doors.

"Look," she beckoned, shining the torch on the glass.

I stood next to her, and watched as she ran the light over the surface of the door. At first I couldn't see it, but after a moment my eyes adjusted, and I made out the hair-thin lines etched onto the glass. They were sigils, bigger versions of the ones on Olivia's energy stones, but still the same symbols of power.

"They're wards," Annabeth said, her grey eyes reflecting the light of the torch as she surveyed the inscriptions. "The Hecate and Melinoe kids were working on them for three hours this morning. They'll keep out anyone for a while, even strong spirits like Dolos. It would take a god to break through them at speed."

She paused. I gave her a wary, sidelong glance. "But? I just know there's a but."

Annabeth sighed, and turned off the torch. "They're not ready. We need a boost of energy to activate them, but all our magical demigods are too drained to do it. Hecate was supposed to be here to turn them on, but I got word before we left that she's been trapped into fighting Tartarus's guerrilla spirits in Louisiana."

My stomach lurched as I processed this. I glanced around at our little army, and back at the army's strategist. "So if the monsters or the spirits break through…?"

"We're in big trouble," Annabeth nodded tightly, her aura's grey-light flickering like a dying incandescent bulb. "That's why I've put our strongest fighters up the front. Normally in a defensive formation I'd vary things, but right now we need to put everything we have into stopping Tartarus's forces from advancing a single step towards these doors. We need to hold out until Hecate gets here."

"And what if we don't? Or what if she doesn't come?" I said, very quietly. "What happens then?"

She looked at her watch, and checked the ranks of half-bloods once again. "Nothing good."

A shout rang out across the street - several of them, cries of alarm, coming from both ends. A son and daughter of Hermes appeared on the east end of the street, while another son of Hermes hurried around the corner on the other end a moment later.

Annabeth stepped into the middle of the road. "What's going on?" she shouted, glancing from scout to scout.

"They're here!" yelled the guy on the west end. "They just came out of nowhere, a block away. They're moving fast."

Annabeth cursed under her breath. "I told you to IM me!" she shouted.

"There's no time," called the Hermes daughter on the east end. "They're minutes away on this side, too."

"Godsdamnit. Both ends at once, like things weren't bad enough." Annabeth shook her head. "I was afraid of this."

I met her pained gaze, before looking up at the two scouts. I recognised the girl as Sophie Day, Josh's twin sister. The guy with her was Oliver Dunne, an especially kleptomaniacal son of Hermes who'd stolen my phone twice and given it back once.

(The second time I'd stolen it _back_. When in Rome. Or Athens, as the case may be.)

(It's funny how you think of things like this when they don't matter anymore. It's like your mind wants to distract you from the icy sensation crawling down your spine, the sense of growing certainty that everything is about to go on fire.)

The flames caught hold.

The two Hermes demigods were standing in the centre of the road, and as I looked at them, a flicker of movement at the left-hand corner caught my eye, something fast, appearing and disappearing in an instant.

Instinctively, I drew on my pure sight. It came instantly, faster than ever before, everything before me melting into glaring colours and lights, as I saw the full extent of each demigod's aura, the Hecate kids' flimsy wards, the strands of pulsing energy in the air—

And the black spectre, enveloped in a veil of shadow, reaching out to wrap its hands around Oliver's neck.

I screamed, as loud as I could, "Behind you! _Oliver_! _Duck_!"

Oliver just stared down at me in confusion, but Sophie, more familiar with my sight, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down. The spectre, visible only to me, stumbled past him, before veering around to snatch at the daughter of Hermes. She screamed - as you would if an invisible hand took hold of you - and jerked away, but the thing clung on, getting a grip on her neck.

Oliver stared at her in further confusion, then copped on, and swung a wild punch in the general direction of the spectre. Somehow, he connected, hitting the spirit in the temple. It let go, reeled away, tumbling to the ground. Its concealing veil of darkness evaporated into nothing. The half-bloods at that end of the street stared in astonishment, while I took a deep breath, still holding my pure sight fully open.

And then, from nowhere, Tartarus's forces fell upon us.


	6. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

* * *

 _"_ _There are too many of them." Reyna wondered bitterly how many times she'd said that in her demigod career._

 _She should have a badge made and wear it around to save time. When she died, the words would probably be written on her tombstone._ There were too many of them.

–Rick Riordan, 'The Blood of Olympus'

* * *

The spectres attacked both ends, flooding around the corners, smashing into our defensive wall of demigod muscle. I started moving towards our back ranks, drawing my dagger, but Annabeth put a hand on my shoulder.

"No," she said, raising her voice as the roar of the battle filled the air. "Stay here. I want you to watch things with me."

I started to ask why, but decided that would be a ridiculous question, even for me. I nodded, and so we stood there pretending to be calm observers, as the battle for the Underworld began.

Tartarus had sent the same spectres I'd faced at the Empire State Building, except this time they'd come in full ninja warrior form. They were all pitch black and intimidatingly solid, super-animated black marble statues. There was a hell of a lot more of them than last year, too. They pushed forward, hacking and lunging, dull black weapons in their hands which weren't quite swords but were sharper than clubs. The makeshift wards thrown up earlier slowed them down, but not by much.

On the west end, Percy headed a team of Apollo and Hephaestus demigods as they repelled the ferocious spectres. Clarisse and her siblings held the other end, matching the ruthlessness of the attackers with plenty of their own. The rest of the Hephaestus kids, and the Athena children, formed the second and third ranks on both ends. Any spectres who managed to slip past the front line were cut down by the incisive Athenians. The back two ranks, on either side, had little to do. Here and there, an enthusiastic minor god kid pushed forward to finish off mostly-vaporised spectres, but otherwise they were just there to make us look scarier.

As I watched, the system underlying Annabeth's plan became clear. Before the fighting had begun, it was easy to think that she'd arbitrarily arranged the demigods in groups that didn't mean anything. Now, though, I saw that she'd constructed a machine of blades and armour that ground the spectres into dust and air. It was a strategy with small margin for error, but it was working.

I looked at Annabeth out of the corner of my eye. It was true what they said. The daughter of Athena always had a plan.

"But Tartarus always has a plan, too," she murmured.

"Huh?" I looked at her directly. Could children of Athena read minds, too? It sure would explain a lot.

"I know that look. It's the wow-she-actually- _planned-_ this look," Annabeth replied, sounding amused. Her expression clouded as she eyed the swarming spectres. That dark atmosphere still weighed down, making even my breathing feel oppressed. "But we saw at the solstice that the son of Chaos always has two plans or more. Things are okay right now, but that can change any second. It _will_ change."

She was right, and hell, Tartarus wasn't the only bad guy with plans. No-one had mentioned it yet, but I knew that Jake Wilson's strategies were just as important as the shadow lord's. I hadn't seen any sign of him yet, but that could only be a temporary reprieve.

It was a strange battle. Pitched conflict should be wild, ephemeral, too chaotic to follow. But this one was framed by the boundaries of the street and the structure of Annabeth's strategy. It was a _system_ , not a battle, running like a clock. A wave of spectres drove forward, the frontal defenders cut most of them down, and the remainders were swept up by the Athenians. Despite Annabeth's words of doom, it seemed perfect, simple, easy.

Too easy.

I was watching the east end, where Clarisse was fighting so fast that she was _blurring_ , when things changed.

The spectres filled the area at the top of the street in a dense mass, disappearing around the corner. They were continually pushing forward, but always being held back. Spirit after spirit was vaporised into black dust and mist by the demigods' fast work, and quickly replaced by another, but the half-bloods were just ahead of the pace.

But then, a pulse of shadowy power appeared from the _air_ , and rippled through the spectres.

I still had my sight open, and I recognised Tartarus's dark power. But I could _feel_ it, too. In the shadowy magic that now wreathed around the demonic ghosts, I felt the trademark stench of the pit lord. As I watched, his working wrapped around the spectres, coating them in new strength. I opened my mouth to tell Annabeth, but it was happening too fast. They all stilled, just for a moment, and then surged forward again.

Except this time, some of the spectres took to the air.

"What the _hell_?" I muttered, drawing my dagger reflexively. Demigods all around the street yelled in shock. I glanced around. The same thing had happened on the east end. For every five spectres that clashed with the demigods, one or two rose into the air, wrapped in veils of Tartarus's power, and sped over the heads of the half-bloods.

Straight towards me, Annabeth, and the doors to the Underworld.

Panic swept through me. Wildly, I turned to the daughter of Athena. "What do we do?"

Somehow, Annabeth was calm, even unsurprised. She held up one hand for silence, checked her watch on the other, looked to the rooftops. She drew breath, lifted the loudhailer—

" _Archers_!" she shouted, her voice ringing right up to the roofs of the buildings that hemmed us in. For a single, impossibly long moment, nothing happened. Everything seemed to be motionless - apart from the spectres coming to kill us all, that is. They kept on hurtling up the street, black figures of death clawing their way through the air. I gripped my dagger, and turned to face the west side of the street, to face what must be the end—

It rained arrows.

A huge spectre was less than a yard away, and I was raising my blade to try to shatter it before it could sweep me off my feet, when a bolt of celestial bronze shot out of the sky. It passed through the spirit, and the spectre just behind, and the one behind that. They all exploded, filling the air with grey-black mist, even as more arrows poured down, taking out the flying spectres like spaceships in a video game.

The half-bloods' yells of alarm were transformed into cries of relief. I looked up. At least fifteen archers stood on the roofs above us, every one shooting arrows like they wielded machine guns rather than bows.

"The Apollo kids," I murmured. I'd forgotten that they were even here, much less that Annabeth had sent them to find vantage points. I glanced at the daughter of Athena. Her expression hadn't so much as flickered since the spectres had tried to overwhelm us. My stomach lurched with relief, amazement, and perhaps even awe.

"How did you _know_?" I gasped, sheathing my dagger.

Tartarus's move was already being turned against him. The airborne troops were picked off in a matter of seconds, and the defensive half-bloods were gaining fresh energy from this turn of events. The spectres were being destroyed more quickly than ever, losing ground as the demigods pushed forward, one foot at a time.

"How did you know that would happen?" I asked, still aghast.

"I didn't," Annabeth folded her arms, as though watching a ball game. "But I knew it was possible. Since we got here first, there's no chance that Tartarus could overcome us by just throwing spectres at us, so it's likely that he'd try to take away our advantage. The most obvious way to do that is attack from the air."

A really big cheer filled the air. I glanced around, and blinked. The demigods had moved fast. In burst of energy, they'd cleared both ends of the street of nearly all attackers, and the survivors were fleeing, hurrying back around the corner or disappearing in flickers of shadow. Hermes scouts followed the runaways around the corners, and I checked with my sight, but this was no trick.

The spectres were defeated.

Triumph filled the air, for a moment making me forget the oppressive atmosphere Tartarus had woven round us. The half-bloods shook their weapons over their heads and roared their approval. Even the completely un-warriorlike demigods, like the Aphrodite kids who made up the furthermost back rows, cried out in relief and joy. Their energy swept away any trace of fear.

I was tempted to join in, but I caught Annabeth's eye. Her expression was grim, grimmer than it had been all day. I remembered that the spectres were only the first wave - the easiest wave, at that.

A sense of urgent danger shot through me, right to the pit of my stomach, making me feel ill. I wanted to shout at the demigods to _stop_ , to pull themselves together. Now was the perfect time for Tartarus to strike again, this time with his monsters, or for Jake Wilson to unveil himself in some elaborate trick.

I'd barely finished having that thought, when the Hermes scouts hurtled back onto the street, shouting - _screaming_ so loudly that I could hear them over the victorious noise of their fellow heroes.

" _They're coming_."

Annabeth shifted into action, as though this was the cue she'd been waiting for. She drew a deep breath, and drew her knife for the first time today.

" _Back to your positions_!" she hollered, through the loudhailer. I covered one ear, wincing. A few demigods, mainly the experienced ones, realised what was going on, and quieted those around them. As quickly as it had began, the celebration stopped.

"The monsters are on their way," Sophie shouted from the east end. "There's _hundreds_ of them. Get ready, I think they're going to rush us."

It was almost amusing how quickly the mood shifted. Percy glanced around and shouted down, "What do we do now? Rush forward, catch them before they hit us?"

"Just stay where you are," Annabeth called back. "Hold your positions. Do not push forward, and do _not_ let the line break."

"There must be something I can do," I asked her, as the half-bloods refocussed."I'm kind of pointless here. I need to be down there with them."

She shook her head. "I can't send you into the fray. Chiron told me that you're a strategic asset, not a warrior."

"Gee, thanks," I said flatly. "I love being treated like an entry in a munitions log."

"I know," Annabeth shrugged. "But that's war. Just watch out for illusions, and don't get killed."

"I'll try my best."

She stepped away to talk to some half-bloods in the back ranks. I eyed the east end of the street.

In an odd, slightly insane way, I was _eager_ for Tartarus to pull out a big illusion. It would probably make things a hell of a lot more dangerous, but at least it would give me something to _do_. It was hugely anticlimactic to be standing here _watching_ a dramatic battle for one of the centres of Greek mythology.

So you can imagine my disappointment when, without disguise, trickery or even showy shadow stuff, the monsters hurtled onto the street and slammed into the defensive line in a haymaker of slavering ferocity.

The half-bloods were standing ready, but the assault was so harsh that Annabeth's formation was almost broken. The sheer _variety_ of monsters was frightening: dracaena, Laistrygonians, telkhines, empousa, and all of them were rushing forward and battering the half-bloods with a violent intensity. The pressure was palpable as they pressed in, trying to dislodge the leading heroes, but somehow the children of the gods held on, refusing to be pushed back.

" _For Olympus_!" Clarisse's voice roared out, to be joined by other battle cries, some incoherent, but all clear with confidence.

" _For Bob_!" Percy's voice rang out too, though that battle cry wasn't as eagerly echoed by his fellow heroes.

At first, I thought we were screwed. But somehow, someway, the formation held together. Most of the monsters were stopped dead, no matter how much they clawed and struggled, and any that managed to get past the front line were hacked apart by the Athenians. It looked impossible, a collection of teenagers and young adults holding back a horde of nightmarish creatures endowed with the dark blessing of Tartarus, but they did it.

Annabeth came back. "What do you think is going to happen next?" she asked me.

I glanced at her, then at the battle. "I don't know." I took a deep breath, trying to avoid the distraction of the horror and the drama, trying to think strategically.

Then it came to me. Tartarus's tactical problem right now was the size of his minions. Most of the monsters attacking the half-bloods could be taken down at speed by one fighter, two at the most, so we were never in danger of being physically overwhelmed.

"They're going to bring in a bigger beast," I said. "A tank. Something to break our ranks and throw us into chaos."

Annabeth nodded.

"That's what you're expecting?" I eyed her. "What are you going to do? Do you have a plan?"

The daughter of Athena had every right to roll her eyes at that. "What do you think?"

She pointed at the weaker half-bloods ranged on either side of us. They were edgy, watching the monsters with grim concentration. "Tartarus expects us to meet everything with force. He's going to send in creatures that will take a long time to kill. Then he'll take control of the battle with the rest of the monsters and his rogue spirits.

"But I've prepared for this. When the tanks turn up, the frontline fighters will let them pass."

I frowned. "Wow. They'll attack and kill us, falling right into our trap."

"There's more," Annabeth shook her head. "I have two children of Hypnos on the west and east ends of the street. They'll use their powers to subdue the big monsters. Then six children of Demeter, three on each end, will join in, binding the tanking monsters to the spot. Then a child of Nike will finish them off."

As she spoke, the daughter of Athena pointed out the various demigods, only a couple of whom I could actually name. They looked considerably tenser than their fellow minor god children.

"You really think that'll work?" I asked, looking at Annabeth's supposed ace cards with some doubt.

Annabeth gave me a steely glare for a moment, her jaw so tight it looked painful. "I know it will."

A second after she said that, shouts rang out from the west end. I looked around. Percy and his comrades had reduced the attackers to nonthreatening clouds of yellow dust. They were cheering now, clapping each other on the back and roaring in victory.

They weren't paying attention when the Minotaur charged around the corner at the head of a fresh wave of nightmares.

I stared in total horror as the awful bull-man stretched itself to its full height and roared a bloodthirsty challenge into the air. It was eight foot tall, with its massive bull-head seeming unreal, like some kind of macabre Halloween mask. The whole street seemed to shake as it howled out its beastly challenge. The half-bloods stopped their celebration with comical abruptness, and stood gaping at the creature, all apart from Percy, who raised his sword and roared back in defiance.

The Minotaur shook itself, as though bracing for the fight, and charged forward. It drew closer, and for a second I was sure it would tear into the half-bloods like a burning sword through cloth, but at the last second, the front line of demigods shifted. They opened a gap, letting the beast slip past. Then they reformed, just in time to block the onslaught of smaller, less deadly monsters which came rushing in the greater beast's wake.

The Minotaur lunged through the demigods, sending them flying as it swung a terrible double-headed axe. The half-bloods ducked and dodged, barely avoiding the razor-sharp blade. The monster lurched down the street, brushing off the arrows that came hailing down from the rooftops.

And then, it reached Annabeth's trap.

The back three rows of half-bloods surged into action, forming a triangle-shaped clearing in their midst just as the Minotaur reached them. The monster stepped into the open area, and the half-bloods around the edge of the triangle closed ranks, raising their weapons and shields. It let out a confused grunt, and swung about on the spot, that terrible head tilted at a creepy, inhuman angle.

Then, the two children of Hypnos stepped forward, one on either side of the Minotaur. Before the creature could react, they raised their hands and began to chant, their eyes shut, their blue-black auras pulsing in time to one another. The monster froze mid-step, like a statue, some kind of monument to all that was terrible in the world. The undulating tones of the children of the god of dreams filled the air, relaxing everything, making all things calm, turning grim reality into a dream you know has to end soon. The Minotaur's muscles started to relax, the axe lowering until the blade was pointed at the ground.

Three children of Demeter, one at each point of the triangle, clapped their hands in unison. Green-brown power, almost blindingly bright, filled the clearing, bouncing from side to side, covering the ground in a mesh of rippling energy. Grapevines, coarse green plants and thick stalks of wheat broke up out of the ground around the Minotaur. The agricultural onslaught surged upwards, countless vegetable roots and grain stalks wrapping around the bull-man's limbs and torso, binding it in place. The Demeter demigods clapped their hands again, and the horticultural prison grew faster and faster, forming bonds stronger than the heaviest irons.

The Minotaur didn't react to any of it, still entranced as it was by the children of Hypnos's low chants. It dropped the axe, and sank to its knees, its intimidating grandeur dissipating before our eyes.

Then, as the monster began to slump over, as though about to lie down, a son of Nike came running out of the demigod ranks. He dashed towards the beast at top speed and jumped. He came down through the air in a wide arc that brought him closer, closer, closer to the monster, and as he dropped low, the half-blood swung a long broadsword, and decapitated the Minotaur with a single strike.

Cheers rang out around the street before the monster's head even hit the ground, but they were muted sounds. The monster onslaught was continuing on both sides, Tartarus's minions pounding into the defenders with renewed violence.

Annabeth raised her eyebrows at me. "I think that worked, don't you?"

Before I could reply, a terrified noise filled the air. It wasn't a brief cry of alarm, or even a scream of pain. It was the noise someone made when they knew they were about to die. My blood seemed to stop flowing for a second. The last time I'd heard something like that, I'd been watching a daughter of Aphrodite get devoured by a hydra in Central Park.

I whirled around to the east end, in time to see two children of Ares crumple to the ground like a pair of bloodied dolls. Looming over the defensive line, wielding claws brightened by demigod blood, were two massive hydras, their many heads bobbing at the ends of their giraffe-necks, like some sort of nightmarish children's drawing.

For a single moment, everything was still. I could make out every detail of the killing machines that were about to storm the street and tear us asunder. Their purple, snakelike hides were dull in the grey light of the cloud-laden day, and their fangs seemed sharp enough to cut the air they moved through. Tartarus's dark aura of power flickered around them, a blessing of nightmarish energy that they hardly needed.

Then, things moved very fast.

"Demeter! Hypnos! Nike!" Annabeth shouted, her voice high-pitched with suppressed terror. "All of you advance! _Now_! You too, all of you!" She gestured at the half-bloods who'd taken down the Minotaur, and they hurried past us to join their siblings on the east side. The twelve of them hurried toward the hydras, as others began to slash at the bobbing heads in wild desperation.

"Let them through, Clarisse!" Annabeth shouted, through the loudhailer. "Let the hydras pass!"

I was sure the daughter of Ares would argue, but she shouted a quick order to the fighters around her, and the defensive ranks splintered open, letting the hydras surge forward. The Demeter and Hypnos children met them, dashing around to enclose the monsters in a rough circle. As they started trying to subdue the hydras, Leo Valdez hurried through the crowd to the children of Nike, who stood waiting for their chance, and handed them both long, metallic, gun-like implements.

"Flamethrowers," Annabeth told me. "To cauterise the decapitated heads of the hydras."

That was cool, but right now it looked like we'd be lucky to _have_ decapitated heads to cauterise. The sheer size of the hydras was making it impossible for the Hypnos and Demeter kids to restrain them. Both monsters were fifteen feet tall at least, and their constantly moving heads were making the job even harder. Every time some vines or plant roots wrapped around the underbellies of the creatures, a snapping head would swoop down and sever the restraint, while the remaining heads menaced the Hypnos kids, snapping at them, stopping their chants from picking up any kind of rhythm.

All the while, the smaller monsters were battering against the defending half-bloods. Cries of pain were ringing out more and more often, as the demigods got tired and slow, and injuries began to creep in. The Apollo archers were raining down arrows more ferociously than ever, but still the enemies kept coming, and still the hydras remained intact, barely restrained from continuing their charge up the street.

And then, just as I thought things couldn't get any worse, the street began to _shudder_. For a crazy second, I thought it was an earthquake, perhaps Hades arriving with an army of undead to save the day, but Annabeth glanced over her shoulder, and her face went grey.

"Oh no, no, _no_ ," she whispered. "Hyperboreans."

With a reluctant horror, I turned on the spot.

Five or six massive blue forms had appeared on the west end of the street. The Hyperboreans wafted ice-smoke, and they appeared to be hopelessly uncoordinated, but their sheer size, twenty feet tall or more, was causing chaos as they stomped into the demigod ranks. Every time their feet hit the ground, ice spread across the concrete like frozen wildfire, and demigods were slipping and sliding as they tried to fend off the big, unfriendly giants.

Annabeth started walking towards the melee.

"I'm going in," she told me over her shoulder. "You take this side."

"What are you talking about?" I said, grabbing her arm, forced to shout now as the noise of the battle grew. "It's _chaos_!"

"I know!" she snapped, her aura whipping about her head. "This is _my_ fault, my plan failed. Tartarus has stronger forces than I realised. There's nothing we can do now except fight for our lives. I _have_ to help them."

Without another word, she vanished into the fray. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the son of Nike loosing a long gout of fire from the flame thrower. I looked around, just in time to see one of the hydras explode into a dense cloud of yellow dust. The remaining purple nightmare did not react well to the loss of its fellow. It coughed out a stream of poison, taking a son of Demeter square in the chest. He fell to the ground, dead before he could begin to scream.

Hope seemed to be disintegrating before my eyes, as I watched the battle devolve. Two of the Hyperboreans had been destroyed, but still the demigods were struggling to contain the threat. Several children of Athena were sent flying through the air by a swing of a giant's fist, and the ground turned frostier, the ice starting to harden into a dangerous, slick surface.

Something was wrong, I realised. Things were just _wrong_.

I took a breath. The battle grew distant from me as my thoughts started to pick up a pace. The monsters were far harder to defeat than they should have been. Something was protecting them, giving them more strength. They were all taking way too long to die. Something was getting in the way.

I'd let my pure sight fade, but now I reached for it without even bracing myself, and I looked upon the battle in all its dark drama.

(I nearly collapsed, if anyone cares.)

Every monster on the street was encased in a shell of shadowy power. It was thin, but worked like armour, absorbing the demigods' attacks, breaking up with every strike of celestial bronze, but always giving the monster a little more time, forcing the half-bloods to work just that bit harder. The smaller monsters had only the slightest protection, but the bigger ones, like the giants and the hydra, bore dense shadow-armour, which repelled all but the most determined of attacks.

The source of this additional power was obvious to me - but I had no idea how we could overcome it, or if it was even possible. The second hydra was close to being destroyed now, with three of its heads ablaze and disintegrating. But the demigods were running out of energy, and more Hyperboreans were emerging on either end, stomping into our midst with ruthless force.

And then, before I could fit my thoughts into a coherent plan, the spirits came.

They appeared in an instant, coming from nowhere to streak through the air like ethereal birds of prey, six on each side. Some raked at the air with long claws, sending ripples of disruptive power through the ground battle. Demigods were thrown out of their formations, sending things into further chaos as the lines of defence were scrambled. Several other dark spirits plunged into the battle, hacking at the half-bloods like they were so many trees waiting to be felled.

Only one spirit didn't stop. He glided up the street, not even glancing at the battle, his form far more substantial than the other spirits. I gripped my knife, tensing as he neared me. He dropped to the ground, and looked up.

"I am Dolos," whispered the spirit of misery. His face was somehow both young and old, wizened and worn yet not aged. In this human form, he was my height, clad in dark Stygian armour that sucked in the light around him like a metallic vortex. His eyes were dull in his pale face, like jagged black rocks abandoned on a stony beach. His aura was tombstone-grey, and it wreathed around him like mist, half-formed faces flickering through it, their hollow eyes straining to meet a sympathetic gaze.

"I'm Cyrus Wright," I said, trying to keep my face steady, fighting to ignore his horrible aura. I had my back to the studio doors, and started stepping backwards, very slowly, getting distance between me and Dolos.

"I know," the spirit replied. His voice was soft and still somehow grating, like a snake's hiss. He drew a jagged Stygian sword, and stepped towards me. "I've been instructed to destroy you on my first opportunity."

I gulped, and continued to back away. I knew I had no chance in a fight against a being like this. My only hope of survival was escape into the studio, but then there would be no one to stand between Dolos and the Underworld entrance.

My back finally hit the door. I had nowhere else to go. I raised my knife, and stared into Dolos's dull, dead eyes. The spirit of misery stopped, holding his sword in front of him, almost lazily, as though he didn't really care what happened next.

"But before I kill you," he said, still whispering, "I'd like you to see the end of your godly allies."

He raised a gauntlet-clad hand, and began to murmur in Ancient Greek. I'd given up on learning the language before I'd left camp, but it didn't matter: the darkening of Dolos's aura told me that he was preparing some seriously bad juju.

For a brief, heroic second, I considered diving on the spirit to stop him before he could unleash that juju. His focus was on his magic, and if I moved fast enough—

I made my decision, and was tensing to make the lunge, when Dolos made a violent waving gesture. A ripple of grey-coloured mist flickered out from his gauntlet, filling the air, spreading around the street. It washed over me, and an overwhelming sense of futility welled up in me. Everything seemed utterly hopeless. I was trapped, Dolos had me, there was no point in even trying to fight. I might as well throw down my knife and let him kill me.

I gazed around, vacant. The spirit's mist was spreading around the street, washing over everyone. The monsters and spirits had stopped fighting, and were watching as half-blood after half-blood dropped their weapons or fell to their knees. The demigods' auras wilted and faded as they succumbed to Dolos's misery, as they gave up.

I agreed with them in the quiet of my mind, which was growing ever quieter as my mind whirled to a stop. I started to sink to the ground. There was nothing that could be done. Conflict was endless. It made more sense to give in, and have peace. My thoughts stopped, my energy drained away, along with my emotions. Memories of all my failures, all my disappointments and all my bad decisions filled my mind, snapshots of my inabilities. This defeat, I knew, was just the end to it all, the just end to a wasted—

 _No_.

Deep inside me, beyond the reach of Dolos's mist, something stirred.

I frowned - or did I? Perhaps I only frowned in my mind. The boundaries of things were drawn faintly just then. Dolos was turning back to me in slow-motion. More demigods were surrendering. The monsters were preparing to strike them down. I turned my head, and saw Kevin, near the top of the street, dropping his sword, falling to his knees.

Another part of me gave up. I wanted to collapse for the last time, let Dolos walk over my body and enter the Underworld with the armies of Tartarus at his back. Let him forget about me. Let me forget about it all.

But something else, the part of me that had refused to ever give up, even when I'd been dying alone in the Sea of Chaos, that part said no.

Distantly, I thought of everyone I'd failed. Nico. Jane. The friends I'd abandoned until now. What good was I to them?

 _But I made a promise._

The dying flames stirred.

 _I was dispatched across the time stream to place my blessing on you._

Hestia.

She believed in me. She thought I could make a difference. She thought I _was_ the difference, the difference between darkness and light, at least in this war, war of shadows.

I was the Lightbringer, the seer, the one with the power to weave the shadows' shroud. I'd denied my destiny, fought it, but my fate was also my strength. I was not like the demigods, trapped in a mythological cycle, bound to the power of these twisted beings. I was mortal. I was beyond them.

I gritted my teeth. My mind was beginning to clear, Dolos's magic losing its hold. I would _not_ surrender. I couldn't. There was too much to fight for. And if I was going to go down, it wasn't going to happen _this_ easily.

And then, like coming up from underwater, the misery disappeared, and everything snapped back to normal. Dolos finished turning towards me, time returned to normal speed, and my thoughts started to link up, the neural pathways firing in a chain of mental explosions.

"Such a shame," the spirit hissed. "All these heroes. Their final stand was such a waste."

He clenched his free hand. On instinct, I knew that his next act would be to order the slaughter of my friends. I had to do something. My hands moved of their own accord, patting around me wildly. My fingertips brushed over the carvings on the doors.

The sigils.

They still weren't activated. Hecate hadn't arrived in time. If only I could find a way to turn them on— but I couldn't do that. I wasn't a magician. I was just a mortal.

Wasn't I?

With a jolt, I remembered the last time I'd stood alone against an agent of Tartarus. It had been in the lobby of the Empire State Building, when the spectres had nearly breached the outer gate of Olympus. Then, as now, I'd been about to die, but somehow I'd survived. I'd activated Olivia's energy stone, and saved myself.

Dolos raised his fist, drawing breath to shout the order. I dropped my dagger, whirled around. I slammed both hands onto the sigils, and willed them to activate. With all the concentration I'd developed from using my sight, I imagined every drop of energy in my body pouring into the carvings, igniting them into fiery power. I held my eyes shut, and prayed for something, _anything_.

Nothing. Only silence, and the weight of impending death.

Behind me, I heard Dolos's derisive laugh. "You really think a mortal like you can do anything with these sigils? You are far more foolish than I was led to believe, Lightbringer. As for your friends…" He paused, then roared, " _Kill the—_ "

A high-pitched screech. Light so intense that it seared my eyes through their lids. A wave of sheer force billowing out from the wards, leaving me untouched— and then the scream of monsters.

It was a beautiful sound.

I opened my eyes.

I hadn't heard or felt her appear, but a tall woman was standing next to me, one pale hand pressed against the door. The sigils were alight with blinding green power, energy that rippled every few seconds, sending waves of magic billowing through the whole street.

I stared at the woman. For a single, confused moment, I thought she was Olivia, but then I realised she was too tall, too composed, and her aura was too powerful. Still, she had the same engaging eyes, the same dark hair. She turned her gaze on me, and I realised that the goddess's aura was the identical shade to the green magic now pulsing through the door to the Underworld.

"Hecate," I breathed.

She inclined her head. Cheers of triumph, a strange sound after the total defeat of a moment ago, filled the air. I glanced up.

Those wards were more than just little scratchings. The power that had been unleashed through them had vaporised most of the monsters on the street, while dispelling Dolos's working of misery. The demigods were on their feet, slashing and hacking the remaining creatures into fine dust. The spirits weren't faring much better. Hecate's power had crippled them, and they lay writhing on the street, trying to summon the power to escape but unable even to control their bodies. Dolos was crumpled a few feet away from me, his armour cracked, his sword gone.

I looked back at the goddess of magic. "You saved us." I scanned her face. She seemed so human and normal. Even her clothes were mortal in appearance, with only the sword dangling on her belt giving any sign of her true nature. "Thank you."

Hecate's expression was inscrutable as she shook her head. "This working was not of my making. I merely finished the task you began."

She glanced up and down the street, while I stared at her in astonishment. The demigods finished off the last attackers. The final dracaena dropped its weapons and ran, only to be struck down by three swift arrows.

"What do you mean?" I said, totally confused. "Did… what I did _worked_?"

Hecate gave me only a brief, neutral glance, before turning away and cupping her hands around her mouth.

"Care for your wounded," she called. Her voice travelled implausibly far. Half-bloods up and down the street turned to stare at her. "Gather your dead. I will see to their return to camp. As for your leaders, your presence is required."

"What? Why?" Annabeth was hurrying up to us. "What _now_?"

The goddess gazed at her, a touch of sympathy in her eyes. "You do not have much time for rest. Prepare to travel again. The gods are holding a council of war on Olympus, and the presence of the leaders of Camp Half-Blood is demanded."


	7. Chapter Seven

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

* * *

 _At one time in my life, a shapeshifted, demonically possessed maniac crashing through a window and trying to rip my face off would have come as an enormous and nasty surprise._

 _But that time was pretty much in the past._

–Jim Butcher, 'Small Favor'

* * *

Three heroes died in the battle for the Underworld. The worst thing was, I was surprised there wasn't more.

Their bodies were identified and laid under a tree. Two of them I'd never known: a son of Ares, and a daughter of Demeter. The third was Josh from the Hermes cabin.

I stared down at his body, feeling oddly cold. He'd been killed trying to stop the Hyperboreans. One of the giants had kicked him ten feet into the air, throwing him into a brick wall. His spine had snapped on impact, among other injuries. Yet the way he lay now, in the tree's shadow, he looked healthy and whole. His eyes were closed, and his hands were clasped on his chest. Were it not for the fact that his ever-bright aura was gone, I would've believed he was still alive.

I thought of the little ways he'd tried to help me, ever since I'd first entered the Hermes cabin two years ago, yet I'd never befriended him. He'd been a good person, and he could have been a good friend, if only I'd put in more effort to become part of his world. But I'd never tried. I'd never even _considered_ trying.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to think.

I turned away, sick to my core. Sophie sat on the pavement nearby, crying in a hushed way that only emphasised her grief. Several siblings were comforting her. I thought about joining them, but I walked away.

Percy, Annabeth and the other cabin leaders stood together at the top of the street. The wounded had been catalogued, and Hecate had spirited them back to camp. In a few moments she was going to move the dead. Meanwhile, the spirits had disappeared. Moments after the battle had ended, a faint wind of shadow had passed over the street, swallowing up Dolos and his fellows.

Now, we were waiting for what came next.

As I walked up to the half-bloods, I wondered about those sigils. Hecate hadn't spoken to me since her cryptic comments, and no-one had bothered to ask how the wards had been activated. Yet I didn't understand what she'd said to me. Was she suggesting that my feeble attempts at igniting the wards had _worked_? Or was I completely misinterpreting a typically vague godly comment?

I wondered also, where the hell was Jake? I felt sure he'd been on-site during this battle, but why hadn't he shown his face? Had he really thought Dolos would win the fight, or did he know we'd win out in the end? Was he working on something else, something much worse?

"Hecate said that Hades will take care of transportation for everyone else," Annabeth told the cabin counsellors, as I reached them. "She's coming back in a few minutes to take us to Olympus. Hades will send the rest of the campers back to Long Island."

We all nodded. Everyone seemed pretty relaxed about the fact that we were going to the home of the gods, and I said to Annabeth, "Isn't this kind of a big deal? A council on Olympus?"

She shook her head. "We've had a few of them in the last couple of months. It's become a routine. Mobilisation. Frustrating battle. Council on Olympus."

I nodded, and glanced around our group. By some miracle, none of the counsellors had been injured, other than Leo Valdez and Piper McClean. Almost the full camp council were here, edgy as we waited to join this mysterious meeting on Olympus.

It felt odd to be running off somewhere else so soon after the battle. I hadn't even been fighting and I was tired. The half-bloods were clearly exhausted, but they were going on, refusing to be worn down. I remembered that this was not the first clash they'd had with Tartarus's forces. The grim expressions of acceptance showed that.

"That was the worst one so far, I reckon," a voice next to me said. I looked to my right. I was standing on the edge of the semicircle, and next to me was a guy a year older than me, but around my height. He had brown eyes dulled by fatigue, loose brown hair and a pale complexion. His aura, too, was a warm brown. He was well-built, sturdy, and had unobtrusively handsome features.

"I don't think we've met," he said, eyeing me, his accent softly Southern. "I'm Bradley, Demeter counsellor. Cyrus, right?"

I shook his hand, not bothering to point out the pun. "The worst one?" I asked.

"Yeah," Bradley nodded, looking away. "I've been in three battles with Tartarus's mooks in the same number of months. We've nearly been overrun defending godly residences in Florida, Washington and Boston. This was the closest we've been to getting straight-up wiped out. That Dolos guy is seriously dangerous."

"Why do you think Tartarus is attacking these places? What does he gain from it?"

"Who knows?" the son of Demeter shrugged. "Probably just trying to wear us down. Hell knows, it's working."

"That is why this council has been called."

Hecate appeared in our midst without even a whisper, but no-one jumped. We'd seen too much horror today to be alarmed by a party trick like that.

"They're ready for you on Olympus," she said, speaking mainly to Percy and Annabeth.

"And our friends will be taken care of?" Percy asked, a little antagonistically.

"Don't worry," Hecate replied, making a pacifying gesture. "I promise, they will. Now, come."

I moved to look over my shoulder, to check on the others, but I'd barely moved when Hecate murmured something, green light flared around us—

—and we were standing on Mount Olympus.

I staggered. Quanta transmission had seriously impressed me, but this was incomprehensible. In the literal blink of an eye, Hecate had taken us all the way across the continent, landing us outside the doors to the throne room of the gods. It was an even faster, smoother job than her children had done.

Around us, nature spirits and minor gods were hurrying around, tense and wary. Overhead, the sky was still that dull, depressing grey, like the atmosphere itself was being affected by the darkening war with Tartarus. A number of demigods were cursing, exclaiming, even falling on their knees. Percy looked unaffected, but Annabeth was clutching her head as though she'd been struck. Next to me, Bradley was on his hunkers.

"Hell," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes. "A little warning would've been nice."

Hecate stood eerily still, watching as we recovered. I felt okay. Repeated shadow-travels and jumps around the Underworld habituate you to magical journeys pretty good. I was a little queasy, but that had less to do with our quantum leaps across the continent and more to do with the lingering image of our three dead friends lying on the ground like animals waiting to be packaged.

Finally, Annabeth pulled herself together, and nodded at Hecate. The goddess turned, and led the way into the gods' centre of power. The doors, massive things, built to be opened by twenty-foot-tall beings, swung open before us.

The throne room sure looked better than it had in the vision Hestia had shown me. It was huge, of course.

(There must be some kind of mythological law that forbids any deific location being smaller than your average medieval castle.)

The ceiling arched high above us, white marble and glistening gold everywhere, ostentatiously supported by great stone columns. Around the centre of the chamber, the twelve massive thrones of the main Olympians were arranged in a large U-shape, just like the cabins at camp. A number of other, smaller thrones were arranged inside and outside the horseshoe - the seats of the minor gods. There was a recessed pit at the very centre of the room, where a great fire burned dramatically.

But I noticed that the fire was flickering, even dimming intermittently, as though on the verge of dying out. I looked at it as we moved closer to the thrones. Every now and then, the flames sank down low, as though buffeted by an icy wind, before blazing up again with a triumphant spark. All the while, Hestia sat by the fire, tending it, not looking up, even for a moment.

Still, none of that was remotely impressive when you consider that every throne was filled by a Greek deity.

Not many of them _looked_ like Greek deities. Most of them looked like regular people you'd see anywhere. Only their space-bending godly auras distinguished them from normal human beings.

Them all being about eight feet tall was a clue, too.

I'd only met three Olympians, but I recognised a few others. The scary guy with the dark beard and piercing blue eyes at the top of the horseshoe was obviously Zeus. He wore a sharp tailored suit, gripped some kind of rod in his right hand, and had a grey-blue aura so intense that I had to shut off my pure sight before I got a migraine.

We came to a halt, Hecate still at our head. I was right behind her, and glanced over my shoulder at the half-bloods. They looked so tense, it would have been reasonable to think that they were about to be executed. It was then that I realised I felt no fear. These great and mighty gods held no power over me. Maybe it was because I was mortal.

Or maybe it was because I knew my fate lay beyond them.

"Lord Zeus," Hecate spoke at last. "I have brought the half-bloods, as you requested. They successfully defended the entrance to the Underworld, at some cost. I returned their comrades and their casualties to the camp."

Zeus infinitesimally inclined his head at the goddess. She bowed in response, and strode across the chamber floor to take up her throne, behind and to the left of Athena's seat. The goddess of wisdom was eyeing us, cold and neutral in her ceremonial dress. I glanced sideways at Annabeth: her expression was neutral, too, but next to her, Percy looked like he was about to be interrogated by the Gestapo.

Annabeth moved to stand at the front of our group. The fire pit lay between us and the gods, like some kind of visual reminder of the gulf between the mortal and immortal.

"Lord Zeus," she said, inclining her head. "Olympians. Gods and spirits. We thank you for this reception, and ask to what we owe the honour of the summons to these halls."

The sky god regarded us in silence. Behind me, I heard Clarisse mutter, very quietly. "We're gonna get an award, right?"

I examined a couple of the other Olympians, as they examined us. Percy's dad was sitting next to Zeus. He looked a lot kindlier than his brother. His green eyes held the calm sea's reassuring peace and the warm breeze's exciting potential, while his tanned face expressed an unshakeable resolve. His fisherman's trident was loose in his hand, a contrast to the iron grip Zeus had on his lightning bolt. Still, I knew that if I let my sight back in, I'd see one hell of an aura around him and his item of power.

But there was a tension to Poseidon, hidden behind his relaxation, like a volcano hidden under the surface of the ocean. I thought of Percy, of how he appeared so chilled out even in the middle of pitched battle, like the way the sea appears calm in between crashing waves.

Zeus's booming voice filled the chamber, breaking the tense atmosphere that had been tightening around us. He addressed himself to the Olympians, though occasionally deigned to glance at us. "This council has been assembled to discuss the war with the son of Chaos. We find ourselves under increasing pressure from Tartarus and his forces. Countless godly residences have been assaulted. Our children, too, are coming under untenable levels of pressure. Safe-houses have been destroyed. Monster attacks are occurring on a daily basis, making it more difficult to deal with the Rheans' smaller strikes."

He talked at an excessive volume, as though to impress the fact of his presence upon us. The tilt of his head and the cadence of his voice showed that emotion so common, and so dangerous, to rulers: pride.

"Even my personal stronghold in the Appalachian Mountains has been attacked," he went on, his fist tightening further on his lightning rod, making it spark and buzz. "The situation is unacceptable. I want to know _why_ Tartarus has attained such power as to be able to threaten us in this way, and I want to know what we are going to do about it. Athena? Ares? Apollo?"

He glanced at the goddess of wisdom, who nodded as she rose to her feet. Her expression was as impenetrable as the marble around us, her grey eyes as hard as that rock. She adjusted her robes, and stepped to the edge of the fire pit. The shift in focus from Zeus to Athena was palpable, as was the related easing of tension.

"Tartarus's offensive capability has grown exponentially since the winter solstice," she began, her businesslike tone suggesting the start of a long speech. "The disastrous events surrounding the the attempt to complete the ritual of the Pit in Alcatraz allowed the son of Chaos to force some of his consciousness into our world. This—"

"Hey, hey, wait up," broke in an obscenely muscular, leather-jacketed, flame-eyed god who sat directly opposite Athena's throne. I recalled Nico's description of the war god.

 _Ares is basically the Terminator pumped up on crack, high-fructose corn syrup and cordite._

"What do you mean, _some_ of his consciousness? Is he, like, some kind of amoeba or something?" Ares said, loudly, waving one large hand.

Athena heaved the sigh of an overworked teacher. "Tartarus's physical form, consciousness and power were long ago split from each other. You know the story. There is no need to repeat it here." She glanced over at us pointedly. He followed her gaze, and nodded.

I frowned, and bumped Percy with my elbow. He glanced around at me. I raised my eyebrows to say, _What the hell does that mean?_ The son of Poseidon managed to nod and shrug at the same time. He didn't understand that bit of crypticness any more than I did.

Athena was talking again. "In essence, Tartarus gained a foothold in our world which he has not held since before the reign of the Titans. In its most simple expression, any place in the world where there is a shadow, he is now present."

We started glancing down at our shadows as though they were about to leap up and strangle us but—

"There's no shadows in here," Annabeth said, eyes widening in astonishment. She stared over at her mother. " _Nothing_ is casting a shadow in here. How did you…?"

"Apollo," Athena replied, nodding at the slim, blonde-haired guy who looked like a high-school dropout, it seemed like a bad joke to ask us to believe he was the mythical sun god. "To return to the point, it is not currently possible for Tartarus to exert his influence through every shadow in every place. His power has not yet reached that zenith."

( _Yet_?)

"Nevertheless, while he is not tangibly stronger than you or your siblings, Lord Zeus, Tartarus is able to challenge us so effectively because of of his pervasive powers. He can slip through all security systems that are not designed to repel him, allowing him to place his forces in strategic locations at great speed. He can spy on us through the shadows, if we do not take measures against him. His powers of illusion are unmatched by any being in existence. Furthermore, Tartarus's inability to physically manifest is currently an advantage. It means that there is no location where we can strike him down. We can defend ourselves, but we cannot seek him out and confront him."

I couldn't help noticing that the gods were being awfully quiet about exactly what the son of Chaos had _done_ to them. Their silence made me think he'd done more than just bloody their noses.

"So what the Hades are we supposed to _do_?" Ares suddenly demanded, leaping out of his throne, as though he'd heard my thoughts and had been enraged by them. "What are you saying, Athena? Are we just screwed? Do we just sit back and wait for this shadow-psycho to eat us for lunch?"

Around the throne room, deities were muttering and scowling. Minor gods were discussing things amongst themselves, many looking increasingly frantic. Anger filled the room, emanating from the seething war god in rushing waves. My control of my pure sight began to crumble as his aura affected me. Around me, demigods started shifting around, clenching their fists.

But before things could get out of control, Hades, Lord of the Underworld rose to his feet.

He'd been sitting on a simple Stygian throne on the furthest edge of the horseshoe, watching as the Olympians argued, his presence somehow unnoticeable. Now, his power filled the room like a cold blast of air, pushing away the tension and replacing it with a harsh sense of accepted doom. His expression was as grim as ever. He wore a Stygian iron breastplate and heavy grey gauntlets, while a Stygian knife hung at his waist.

"Brothers," he said, looking at Zeus and Poseidon. "Sisters." He looked at the contrasting figures of Hera and Demeter, one stately, regal, cold; the other grandmotherly, grumpy and irritable. He cast a respectful glance toward Hestia, who still tended the fire with total concentration. "My fellow gods. Calm yourselves. We gain nothing by squabbling in this way. Tartarus wants us divided, so that we are far easier to conquer. We must seek solutions, not problems."

The atmosphere began to calm, in no part because of the obvious fear of Hades that many of the gods felt. Zeus inclined his head, as though to say, _the chair recognises the fearsome warrior-king of the Land of the Dead_. "Speak, Hades. What _solution_ do you offer us?"

The god scowled in reply, not missing the sarcasm. "I suggest that we approach this situation rationally. Athena, _you_ must appreciate the need for that. If there is no place in either our world or the Underworld where we can strike Tartarus, there _must_ be some other location at which we can target our attack. The son of Chaos exists in time and space, and is not, as Ares so eloquently suggested, an amoeba."

Athena folded her arms, frowning. "The nature of Tartarus's imprisonment has been highly effective, but it is now creating a problem. His being is not concentrated in any single location. However…"

"There must be somewhere," Hades urged her.

She nodded. "Part of his consciousness is buried at the bottom of the Sea of Chaos, at the furthermost edge of our reality; and nearby his true physical form is entombed. If we were to venture across the Fields of Silence to that place, it would be possible to confront and subdue the son of Chaos."

With a chill, I remembered standing on a rocky cliff, staring down at the whirling fog that was the Sea of Chaos, watching as a shadowy whirlpool spat out a stream of darkness that snaked all the way to Tartarus's sarcophagus. I glanced around, searching for Alice. She stood behind me, and as our eyes met, she nodded, her face pale. We both remembered that night.

"However, that would be an incredibly dangerous task," Athena went on, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. "To venture so close to the void would be to court oblivion. Only the strongest of gods would be capable of making the journey, and even then their survival would not be guaranteed."

"There must be some way to make it work," Zeus snapped, half-standing now. "Perhaps we could—"

A harsh rushing noise filled the air, like a thousand jet planes racing to a battlefield, and something shook the entire mountain.

Our group of counsellors was thrown to the ground. Several thrones overturned, sending gods flying with crashes that were lost amidst the rumble of the shaking ground. The whole chamber trembled violently, as though being shaken by some huge hand.

"Earthquake?" Percy yelled, on his back beside me.

"This is no earthquake!" bellowed Hades, somehow still upright. "We're under attack!"

The trembling came again, and I realised what Hades meant: it wasn't an earthquake, but the shockwaves from heavy impacts. Something massive was being hurled at Mount Olympus - repeatedly, a barrage of god-sized ballistics.

The shaking stopped, and the gods slid into action, as we all tried to get back to our feet. The half-bloods cursed and groaned, checking themselves for injuries. On instinct, I drew on my pure sight. Below us, Hestia was somehow still in the same position, cross-legged and calm.

Zeus handed out orders like a general, his clothes metamorphosing into bronze armour as he spoke. "Minor gods, disperse into Olympus and eliminate any intruding forces. Olympians, with me. Hades, for Fates' sake, do something about this instability."

"This is insane," muttered Alice, as I helped her get upright. "No- _one_ attacks Olympus. It's like attacking an iron wall."

"Someone didn't get that memo," I muttered back, stumbling as the floor shook again, but this time Hades was ready. He spread his hands before him, murmuring long, lyrical Greek words. Greyish-black power rippled out from his gauntlets, filling the air all around us like a discoloured heat haze. The ground and chamber continued to shudder violently, but I felt supported now, somehow able to stay on my feet. Around me, the demigods were the same, stable despite the continuing shockwaves.

"Good!" Ares roared, a massive baseball bat materialising in his hands. "Let's move out!"

In the blink of an eye, all the minor gods just _vanished_. The thirteen major Olympians started to run - and for a second they flickered out of sight, before reappearing on our _other_ side, at the doors.

"Demigods!" Ares bellowed again, from his position at the front of the godly force. The doors to the throne room began to swing open, slowly as they shook on their hinges. "Follow behind us. Stay together. _Forward_!"

The doors finally ground open enough to let the gods through. They charged out with a collective roar like the rush of an unleashed storm, ready to face whatever was daring to threaten their hallowed citadel.

I looked at my friends. "I guess we'd better follow them?"

* * *

We burst out of the throne room, and found ourselves at the centre of a hailstorm of shadows.

Great, boulder-sized chunks of shadowy power were plummeting out of the empty sky, slamming into the godly temples, crushing buildings, every impact rattling Olympus like it was little more than an oversized tin can.

"What the _hell_?" Percy yelled. In front of us, the gods were spread around the street, trying to intercept the bombshells with their powers. A few yards away, Zeus swooped into the air, an eagle in human form, and electrocuted a ball of shadow with a blast of searingly bright power. Apollo had somehow ended up on a rooftop, and was shooting about a hundred arrows a second, intercepting the incoming missiles and bursting them like malevolent balloons.

On the other end of the street, Hades was using his own shadowy powers to neutralise the fusillade, matching each blast of darkness with one of his own. Athena had constructed a shield of shining silver power which absorbed the missiles, leaping flares of light sparking at the points of impact. All around us, the rest of the gods were defending their stronghold, their auras burning with gathered power as they resisted the barrage.

"There's nothing we can do here," said Clarisse, glaring around, her arms folded. She glanced at Annabeth next to her, who nodded.

"Just be ready," she replied. "Any second now."

We stood there, spectators to a supernatural coliseum battle, watching the gods battle this strange assault by Tartarus, made all the stranger because the source of the attack was invisible. The missiles were raining down from the grey sky, like it was already the end of the world.

The gods were holding their own, but no sooner had they found a foothold, and the attack intensified. Three projectiles fell on Apollo at once, throwing him from the temple roof. The shadow-missiles were solid as rock until they hit their target, when they exploded with horrific force, sending the god flying. Four more blasts caught three Olympians by surprise, hurling them through stone walls or ceilings that collapsed onto them.

Several missiles landed perilously close to our position, but we were sheltered by the portico that fronted the throne room. In the air above the rooftops, Poseidon was shrouded in a whirling tornado of air and water, as he doused countless projectiles with pulses of energy from his trident. He seemed in control, but out of nowhere a massive chunk of darkness crushed into him from behind, and exploded.

"No! _Dad_!" Percy yelled, starting to run out into the street, but Bradley and Clarisse grabbed him before he could throw himself into the line of fire, which was bound to kill him instantly.

The god of the sea shot across the sky, his trident spiralling away from him. He plummeted to the ground, at least a mile away, smashing into some great temple with a mountain-shaking impact, even as Olympus again shuddered under another hit.

And then, like the end to a torrential downpour, the aerial blitz stopped. Everything turned calm, and Mount Olympus stopped shaking. The air became still.

The gods didn't react, but stared around, twitchy, waiting for the renewal of the attack. Several very long, very quiet moments passed. The tension and fear turned every second heavy. We exchanged silent, fearful looks, not daring to speak. The gods' auras crackled with anticipation and anger, their power buzzing around them like overcharged thunderclouds.

Then that rushing sound came again, as though a fleet of fighter jets were whistling by—

and the cloud tore open, and the sky was filled with monsters.

"Oh my gods," murmured Alice, next to me. I hurried out onto the street to get a proper look, and some of the half-bloods followed me.

Hundreds of monsters and spectres hung in the air, far above us, a terrible nightmare come true. The whole mass of them was swathed in a fog of flickering shadows that pulsed as it kept them aloft in midair. They were too far away for their expressions to be visible, but even at a distance the malevolence was palpable. The clouds had been ripped apart, and the blue sky beyond formed a bizarre counterpoint to the monsters.

I drew my dagger instinctively, and next to me, Riptide appeared in Percy's hands. Several other demigods drew their weapons, but Annabeth didn't react.

"Don't bother," she murmured, her gaze dispassionate. "They're outside the boundaries of Olympus's shielding system. They can't reach us."

I glanced at the Olympians. Sure enough, they weren't on the offensive, but were standing squarely on the ground, staring at the gathered force with defiance and scorn.

The shadow-clad monsters were arrayed in a rough circle, with an empty space several metres wide at its centre. As we watched, a form faded into that empty space: a dark figure, at least three metres tall, gradually forming before us. When finally Tartarus's avatar became clear, he was still partially translucent, but he was solid enough for us to see his crooked form and his gnarled visage. He drew breath, and it sounded like all the oxygen was being sucked out of the universe.

"You see what I have _done_?" the voice of the pit rang out, filling the sky. It was horrible, high-pitched but with the low sounds of a booming cannon. "I have challenged you in your own stronghold, with your own _heroic_ offspring present. With no great effort I have struck at your very _soul_ , puny gods. Imagine how quickly I could destroy you, were I to make a _true_ attempt."

His words hung in the air, clogging it like the smoke of a burning home. I noticed how many of the Olympians, even Ares, were shifting, hunching in fear, yet around me the demigods stood upright and unshaken.

Tartarus extended one crooked finger. Even at a distance, it was obvious that he was pointing at Zeus. "You know what I want. Surrender the second piece of darkness to me before this month ends, or you and your brethren shall suffer the _full_ extent of my wrath."

A ripple of shadow ran through the army and in the time it takes to lose breath, they were gone.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

* * *

 _Who is the third who walks always beside you?_

 _When I count, there are only you and I together_

 _But when I look ahead up the white road_

 _There is always another one walking beside you_

 _Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded_

 _I do not know whether a man or a woman_

 _—_ _But who is that on the other side of you?_

–T. S. Eliot

* * *

At Zeus's panicked bidding, Hades whisked us back to camp about two seconds after Tartarus disappeared. The king of the gods looked about as freaked out as a vastly powerful deity can be, as he ordered the total lockdown of Olympus.

"Report to Chiron immediately," Zeus bade us, just before Hades waved his hand and flung us into shadows.

The shadow-travel was fast, a few hairs shy of instantaneous. We rematerialised in front of the Big House, and the group dissolved in shock.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Percy said, staring around in disbelief, meeting Annabeth's eyes, but she had no answers. The daughter of Athena was as unsettled as him. She sank down onto her hunkers, her head in her hands, aura trembling as shock set in.

"I'm checking on the wounded," Anna Fields said, her aura sparking randomly, her eyes wide.

"Me, too," agreed four half-bloods who ordinarily had nothing at all to do with the infirmary. The five of them hurried into the Big House, moving fast, as though they could escape what they'd just seen, forget it like a bad dream. A number of others headed to their cabins, discussing things in groups of twos and threes, some visibly shaking, as they tried to deal with such a direct threat being posed to Olympus. Even Clarisse hurried off, her usual hard edge blunted by fear.

Everyone trickled away, not bothering to ask what was happening next, until only me, Alice, Annabeth and Percy remained.

"I never thought this day would come," Annabeth said, in a hollow voice. "I didn't think I would _see_ something like that. I knew it was _possible_ , because Tartarus is such an old entity. But…"

"It was just a bluff," Alice said, moving to put her arm around the daughter of Athena. "There's no way that he can breach Olympus's defences. I know he had those shadow missiles, but that's got to be the limit of what he can do."

"And what if it _isn't_?" I said. It was easy, tempting, to believe that had been a bluff or a clever trick, but I knew Tartarus was way too dangerous for us to rely on mere belief. "Look at the way he moved all those monsters in place, without the gods noticing. We didn't know he was there until he'd already started smashing the place up."

Percy and Alice stared at me bleakly, but Annabeth nodded.

"You're right," she said. "If we, and this means the gods, too, if we don't choose our next move very carefully, this war will be over before we even get to fight back."

"And why is that?"

We looked around. The porch door had opened, and Chiron stood surveying us.

"What happened?" he asked, one corner of his mouth quirking in amusement. "What went wrong _this_ time?"

* * *

We gave Chiron the bad news. He was impassive throughout our delivery, his only reaction coming when I mentioned the "piece of darkness" that Tartarus was demanding. At that he paled, and looked at the ground as though it was about to open beneath him.

When we finished, he told us to go have dinner, and come back for the council meeting later. He _said_ , "You need to get your strength back," but he _meant_ , "Hey, we're all in horrible mortal danger, but there's no point worrying about it on an empty stomach!"

"So what's this piece of darkness thing?" I asked, as we made our way to the pavilion. "Annabeth? Surely you've heard of it, right?"

I fell in step with the daughter of Athena. Alice and Percy walked a little ahead of us.

"No," she said darkly. Her self-disgust at not knowing was palpable. "I've never heard of it."

Percy glanced over his shoulder in surprise. "Nothing at all? Seriously?"

"What you don't understand is that the amount of information on Tartarus in the archives is _extremely_ limited," Annabeth said, folding her arms. The sun was setting, but the clouds hadn't lifted and it was getting cold. "Even in Chiron's files I only found fragments, nothing substantial."

"You looked in _Chiron's_ files?" Alice asked, aghast.

Annabeth just rolled her eyes. "Up till today, I thought it was because he's not a very important mythological figure. He doesn't figure in any major myths, presumably he just didn't _do_ anything important. But I don't believe that anymore. All this about him being imprisoned, and now this piece of darkness thing? There's a big story about Tartarus, but it's been hidden."

"But why?" I asked, frowning. I thought of Olympus Library, and my idea that all kinds of things were hidden away there, information too dangerous to be known.

"There's a few possibilities, but the likeliest one is that by suppressing information about Tartarus, the gods are reducing the chances of him gaining power. The Olympians, the Titans, and everyone related to them get their strength from the mortals _knowing_ about them, believing in them, telling stories about them. So the best way to disempower a mythological being is to pretend they don't exist." She paused. "But that has an awful implication."

We slowed as we neared the pavilion. "What's that?" asked Percy, looking like he'd had enough awful implications to last him a lifetime

The daughter of Athena glanced up at the sky. "The gods didn't try to suppress the Titans or Gaia like this. If they've been doing that to Tartarus all this time, he's far more dangerous than any of us realise. He's worse than anything we've ever faced."

* * *

It was kind of hard to enjoy my dinner after that, but never one to let my meal slip away without a fight, I tried my best.

I told Anna to be ready for the council meeting, and after that put any apocalyptic notions out of my mind. That wasn't too difficult because today the demigods lacked their usual enthusiasm for discussing conflict. The so-nearly-disastrous battle in Los Angeles, already like a distant memory to me, had subdued the camp's collective mood. The funeral rites had been completed while we'd been at Olympus, and the atmosphere of grief still weighed heavy.

I looked around the table as I ate my burritos. We were missing five or six Hermes kids - Sophie, her friends, a couple others - and Josh.

A pang of guilt cut into me, and I stopped eating, when I realised that I hadn't _once_ thought of Josh since we'd left Los Angeles. I hadn't known him well, sure, but didn't I owe him the decency of paying some tribute to his sacrifice? I ought to have _some_ emotion over Josh's death, and the death of the other two demigods, but I felt only vague nausea, as though I was remembering something something unpleasant I'd seen on TV.

By contrast, I could see the grief in the half-bloods, most of all in their auras, which were flat and muted. I could see it in their faces, which were painfully rigid, as though they were holding back from vomiting. Was that how I felt? I didn't know. My nausea faded a little, and now my stomach felt empty, drained. I put my food down, and covered my face with my hands, breathing deep. The images of those bodies, those lost souls, kept drifting back into my mind, refusing to let me go, ghosts haunting me just because I'd had the temerity to survive.

I didn't know how to _respond_ to this. It was even worse than when I'd lost Nico. At least then the visual certainty of rigor mortis hadn't been there to make me face death's bleak reality. Now, there was no escape.

"It's never easy," a soft voice said.

I looked up. Anna was watching me sympathetically from the top of the table, the usual glint of humour gone from her eyes.

"Death's never easy," she said, glancing at her barely-touched plate. "I think it's harder for the people left behind. At least they have peace, something none of us can hope to have." Anna paused, brushed her hair behind her ears. "But we don't help anyone by inflicting guilt on ourselves."

As soon as she said the word - _guilt_ \- I understood. It was not that I had no response to these deaths. It was that I felt only a horror and a frustration at my inability to make a difference, to stop these things from happening.

"This is the game we're all stuck in, Cyrus," Anna said, picking her fork up. "All we can do is play it, and win before we lose too much."

* * *

The council began soon after that. None of the camp counsellors had much of an appetite. As I went with Anna to the Big House, I wondered why Chiron had bothered to tell us to eat at all. Surely he knew it was pointless, like telling condemned prisoners to make plans for the future.

I looked at people as we assembled, though, and I realised that we'd gotten something that had been nonexistent when we'd left Olympus: composure. I could see Chiron's logic now. No point having an apocalyptic council of war when everyone is wound too tight to act rationally.

Still, we weren't exactly in the mood for small talk. It took only a raised hand from Chiron to bring the meeting to order.

"I want everyone to pay very close attention," he began, glancing at each of us in turn, giving particular stares to the obvious offenders. "I have a great deal to explain, and I won't be allowed to repeat any of it."

I exchanged confused glances with Alice, who stood across the table from me.

"I spoke to Hermes in the last hour," Chiron went on, resting his hands on the tabletop, near a discarded bat. "He informed me of everything that took place since you left camp this morning. Firstly, I want to congratulate you on the defence of the Underworld. That was a crucial battle, and you all excelled yourselves."

He sounded halfheartedly cheerful, trying to rouse us into a receptive mood before he delivered a fresh batch of bad news. No-one so much as raised an eyebrow in response.

"None of that matters, Chiron," said Annabeth. She stood next to him, and looked in his eyes with an almost pleading air. "We need to know the truth. What's Tartarus's real story? What is this piece of darkness he wants?"

The centaur grimaced, and his hands tightened into fists. "I've always prayed that this conversation would never happen. The truth about the son of Chaos has been hidden for thousands of years, and to reveal it is to admit that we stand on the brink of total destruction."

"Today, the son of Chaos, as you keep calling him, came within _feet_ of invading the Underworld," Annabeth replied. "After that, he came closer than anyone other than Kronos to invading Olympus. I think we all know _exactly_ where we're standing."

A few people around the room nodded, including me. A few others muttered in angry agreement.

There was a long, deep pause.

"Very well," Chiron said finally. He sighed, and folded his arms. "However, what I am about to tell you _cannot_ be spoken of outside this room." He met our eyes, every one of us in turn, his gaze as unyielding as a granite face. "No matter what happens, no matter what questions people ask you, you _cannot_ repeat _any_ of it."

"Why?" Percy asked, inevitably.

"You will understand, in a moment," Chiron replied. "Now, please don't interrupt. This is a long story, and not an enjoyable one to tell. It is the dark secret of Greek mythology. The long, black tale of the pieces of darkness."

In ancient times, before even the birth of the first Titans, there existed only the primordial beings. Tartarus was the strongest of them all, his power far beyond that of his fellows. The other primordials were unable to hold him in check, and the shadow lord gained full dominion over creation. His mind was as dark as his power, and for a time he held all things in a state of perpetual darkness. For an eon, the creation of new life was impossible, for both light and dark are needed to draw forth new things.

Tartarus's reign ended only when Chronos, master of time, saw that the cosmos would wither and collapse back into the void of Chaos if the shadow lord was not toppled. Faced with no other option, Chronos used all of his strength to bring time itself to a standstill. This constrained Tartarus's power, and allowed the primordial beings to confront their oppressor.

There was a terrible, costly battle, in which many primordials were nearly destroyed. Most of them had no choice but to recede, forevermore, to the edges of reality, to preserve what remained of their minds and powers.

Their sacrifice was not in vain. They tore Tartarus asunder, placing his physical body in an impenetrable sarcophagus and hiding it away at the furthest tip of reality. They cast his consciousness into the depths of the planet with such force that they carved open a pit which, one day, became known by the name of its most deadly prisoner. Finally, they sealed Tartarus's power away into three fragments, forming the three most obscure artefacts of power in existence: the pieces of darkness.

The remaining primordial beings cast these fragments of bound power far, far apart, for they knew that if Tartarus were to ever recover them all, he would rise again and bring terrible vengeance upon the universe.

And so the earth primordial, Gaia, and the sky primordial, Uranus, emerged as the dominant powers. They decreed that the story of this primal battle between light and dark be shrouded in utter secrecy, for they feared that the mere mention of the truth about Tartarus might bring about his return. Gaia, as you know, consorted with the remnants of Tartarus's consciousness to create monsters such as Echidna and Typhon, but she never dared loose him from his incarceration. Even the earth goddess, who twice was a terrible threat to civilisation, understood that the shadow king was too dangerous a force to be freed.

Time marched on. The Titans rose and toppled the primordial beings, before themselves being overthrown by the gods. Despite Uranus and Gaia's decree, the true story of Tartarus was kept alive and passed on amongst a small number of immortals. Among the Olympians, only the elder ones know the true history of Tartarus.

Well. Until now.

The pieces of darkness vanished into the world. Unlike other objects of power, these items were never noticed by mortals, never even identified as intriguing trinkets. Only those half-bloods who wield the power of the shadows can recognise these fragments as anything other than strange-looking rocks.

The journey of the pieces through history is varied. Although the gods attempted to keep track of them all, one vanished beyond their reach, almost two thousand years ago. Its location was never discovered. Most likely it was lost beneath the ocean, or abandoned in some wasteland.

The second piece of darkness is held by one of the elder gods, though which one is a carefully guarded secret. Hades is the most likely, though we will never know for certain.

Finally, the third piece, the one which we are interested in protecting, fell into mortal hands, and has been on the American continent for two hundred years. Its exact location, however, is known only by the true guardian of Tartarus's legacy - Nyx, goddess of the night.

There was a very long silence after Chiron finished talking. We stared at him and at each other in utter disbelief. I was dumbfounded. I'd guessed that there was some big, secret story about Tartarus, but I'd had no idea that it was _this_ big. It was huge. It was _cosmic_.

"How on earth did you hide something this _huge_ for so long?" Annabeth asked, echoing my thoughts.

Chiron shrugged. "It's a simple matter to contain a story if you don't repeat it to anyone." He paused, his expression hardening. "But it is essential that _none_ of you repeat this. The gods gave me clearance to explain the situation only because it is necessary for you to understand our next step."

"What, so we don't tell _any_ of the other campers?" I asked, frowning. "Why? Hell, _how_?"

"Cyrus is right," Olivia Hartnell said, from the other end of the table. "I think everyone needs to know what's going, so they understand what we're facing."

A few demigods began to pitch in agreement, raising their voices to be heard. Chiron raised his hands for silence, which came, with reluctance.

"The greatest source of power for mythological beings is belief," he said. "A small group like this should have minimal impact, but if the number of people who believe in Tartarus's story gets into the hundreds, we could find ourselves in even bigger trouble than we can imagine. If anyone has a problem with that, if anyone _really_ wishes to make our problems worse, I encourage you to speak now."

Chiron glared around at us all, but no-one spoke. Mutinous expressions flitted from demigod to to demigod, even Annabeth and Percy scowling at Chiron, but no-one protested. Still, I knew that the centaur's injunction would never hold. Half-bloods are too curious, and too clever, to let a good story like this one just slip back into the night.

Clarisse asked, "What do we do next?"

The centaur took a deep breath. "Tartarus has demanded the surrender of _one_ piece of darkness. While the gods are obviously not going to obey this command, they want to us to locate and retrieve the piece that is in this country but not in their possession. While they plan our next move against Tartarus, our sole responsibility is obtaining that piece of darkness."

"The only problem with that," said Alice, identifying the stumbling block, as always, "is we don't know where the hell the thing is."

"No, we don't," Chiron confirmed. "But someone does, and we know who that is."

"Nyx," said Leo. (And Percy. And me. Hell, we like being the ones to answer the questions.)

"So all we have to do is find the goddess of night and convince her to share this information?" Annabeth asked. Her cheerful tone didn't _sound_ sarcastic, but this was Annabeth. She'd made sarcasm into a fine art.

Chiron nodded.

"Great," she sighed, looking genuinely relieved. The other demigods shared her enthusiasm for the plan, looking bizarrely satisfied with it. I was apparently the only one who could see the problem.

"Uh, sorry if this is a crazy question," I said, raising one hand. "But why do we need to go find her? Can't the gods just, you know, _ask_ her for the information? They _can_ do that, right?"

The half-bloods fell silent at that one. We all looked to Chiron, who shook his head.

"I'm afraid you don't quite understand the nature of Nyx," he said, scratching his chin. "I hear many people calling her a minor goddess, but that is completely untrue."

My stomach lurched. Jane had always been irritated by that. It had been one of her few serious complaints about camp - at least, before she'd decided to betray the place. With the irrational unease that comes with dark memories, I wondered how important this had been to that betrayal.

"Nyx is a personification," Chiron went on. "She is a very old being, older even than the Olympians. She is an entity of great power. All things, at one time or another, have reason to fear her, just as everyone has reason to fear the night, at one time or another. The gods do not have any authority over her. Even in their most hubristic moments they would not dare demand anything of Nyx. She doesn't accept orders from people she sees as no stronger than her."

With another lurch, I thought again of Jane.

"She is, however, receptive to demigods," he said, his tone growing more optimistic. "If three of you approach her and request the information, you should receive it relatively easily. She has respect for the ceremony of formal quests."

"What does _relatively easily_ mean?" Clarisse said darkly, but no-one argued with Chiron's plan. We had so little going for us, we were taking any scraps of hope that happened to fall out of the trash compactor that was this war. "Alright. Who's going to approach her?"

"Olivia, I think that you would be a good candidate for this," the centaur said. "Hecate is a friend to Nyx, and she would be especially open to hearing your request."

Olivia, to her credit, looked entirely willing to take on this role, though her aura went into tremors, as though a psychic earthquake of alarm was rumbling through her. "Of course. Do I pick my companions?"

Chiron nodded. "That's fine. You can think about it for a while—"

"No," Olivia shook her head. "Not necessary. I'll take Cyrus, and Kevin from the Ares cabin."

I looked at her in surprise. I'd been friends with her for a while, but I didn't know she had _that_ kind of confidence in me. Hell, I didn't know if _I_ had that kind of confidence in me. Approaching a twitchy deity who possessed immeasurable power? Retrieving information about ancient evil items of doomsday-level danger?

I told myself to shut up before I made myself sick with nerves.

"Very well," Chiron said. "Take time to rest and prepare. You need to leave by tomorrow afternoon."

"Wait, wait," Olivia said, holding up her hands, before the demigods started to head for the exit. "Where are we _going_? Where _is_ Nyx?"

For the first time since the meeting had begun, Chiron managed to smile. "She used to reside in shadowy, dark locations, but decided that made it too easy to find her. She lives in the brightest part of whatever country Olympus happens to be residing in. In the case of the United States, that means the Sunny State itself. You're going to Florida."


	9. Chapter Nine

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Nine**

* * *

 _"_ _Harry," Thomas said. "Remind me why we keep hurling ourselves into this kind of insanity."_

–Jim Butcher, 'Proven Guilty'

* * *

"So I looked at her and I said, 'You're crazy, right? Those magic spells finally cooked your brain, didn't they?'"

"To which she replied…?"

"'I knew you'd say that,'" Kevin shrugged. "Then she explained why she wants me to come with you and her, and I guess it makes sense. Though I still think there's gotta be better candidates."

Kevin and I were sitting by the lake, watching two canoe teams race one another so intensely that one might have thought the secret to eternal life was waiting for them on the opposite bank. It was mid-morning. I'd gone straight to bed after the council meeting, and at breakfast, Kevin, Olivia and I had been released from our schedules to prepare for our trip to Florida.

Ostensibly, then, Kevin and I were practicing sword-fighting, but we were having a self-inflicted break instead. Olivia was in her cabin, preparing her runestones for the quanta transmission trip to Nyx's home. We were leaving at three in the afternoon. As major missions go, this one was pretty leisurely so far.

"Apparently, there isn't," I said, watching the Demeter kids thrash their paddles furiously. "But that's not really important. I'm just wondering what the hell we're going to find in Florida."

"What do you mean?" Kevin asked me. He was polishing his bronze breastplate, his movements full of nervous tension.

"Is Nyx really going to just _hand_ us the information we need?" I said, shifting around on the grass. "Hell, is she going to _be_ there? Demigod life is never simple, and things haven't exactly been flowing smoothly for the last couple days."

"She'll be there. I really don't think the goddess of the night is much of a globetrotter. But you're right about the other part. Nyx is going to test us. If she's the guardian of Tartarus's legacy, she'll want to make sure we're not double agents who'll hand over the piece of darkness to Tartarus or something."

"Oh, no, you've foiled my secret plan. Damn you."

We fell silent, me watching the canoeing half-bloods, Kevin still cleaning his armour. This was the first real conversation we'd had since my return, and neither of us was really sure what to say to the other. My usual sense that I'd abandoned the half-bloods was even stronger when it came to Kevin, and that feeling wasn't lessening. The more I understood how much of an advantage Tartarus had over us, the worse I felt.

It wasn't that I _owed_ Kevin anything, but friends deserve more than total disappearance and utter lack of communication. While I'd been on, to use a charitable term, my hiatus, I'd lumped him in with all the other half-bloods, and that wasn't right.

Kevin wasn't comfortable with things, either. I could sense it in his tone, like I was someone he'd known a long time ago, someone only partly remembered. Our friendship was still there, but it was obscured by the mist of uncertainty that I'd created by running over the hills like a scared rabbit.

So I was just sitting there, trying to think of the best way to clear all this up and not having much luck, when Kevin went ahead and made things easy for us. "So why _did_ you come back?"

I glanced at him. As ever when the son of Ares asked an important question, he wasn't looking at me directly, but glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, as he examined the inner lining of the breastplate.

"Because I had to," I answered, after a pause. "I couldn't stay away. I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if it turned out I could have made a real difference."

"To be honest, if you make as much of a difference as that prophecy says, none of us will be doing much living if you don't play your part," Kevin replied flatly. I glanced at him sidelong, and managed to catch his eye as he looked up.

"I'm not angry with you, Cyrus," he said, looking away. Sunlight flicked across his glasses."I know what it's like to want to get away from a set of demands which just don't stop. I would have left this place the day after I came here if it had been a reasonable option. Camp isn't easy for the people who don't fit its rhythm."

"That's exactly right," I nodded, feeling relieved.

Kevin finally put down his breastplate, and folded his arms. "Yeah. But I have a problem. It's not that you left. It's that you just _did_ it. You didn't even think about it much, right? Just made your decision and left?"

I shook my head, embarrassed by my lack of rationality. Even before Hestia had come to me, I'd begun to feel bad about how rushed my decision had been. Still, my supremely strategic friend had a way of making me feel _really_ insecure about my impulsive choices.

"Yeah," he nodded back. "That's what I figured. So what I'm saying is, I respect your choices, but you should have _talked_ to me."

I eyed him.

"You're an introspective guy, Cyrus, I get that," Kevin said, meeting my gaze. His eyes were partially hidden by the sun's reflection on the glasses, and that made him seem a lot sterner. "But life is too complicated to understand it on your own. When you're as smart as you, it's easy to think you can figure it all out inside your own head, but no- _one_ has a head big enough for that."

"Well…" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"No, not even Zack," he said, preempting my obvious joke. "You don't have to tell me everything, but you should have _talked_ about things, at least a little, before you left. Do you think Jane would have made the same choice if she'd really _talked_ first?"

My stomach lurched. It was the first time Kevin had mentioned Jane to me. I looked away from him, feeling both ashamed and angry. Ashamed because he was right about me, but angry because he was wrong about Jane. I'd spoken to her before she left, and no words would have helped her.

"Problems are always going to be happening," Kevin went on. "So the next time you feel like you're on your own, I want you to remember that I'm here. Okay?"

I swallowed. He'd hit a chord. There was something about my pure sight that always made me feel alone. It had lessened since I'd joined camp, and sure, I knew I had friends, but sometimes it didn't feel like it. Particularly when I stood alone, as I had back at the winter solstice. When you see things differently to everyone else, it's hard to feel anything but isolated. In some ways, it would have been easier if I was just nuts. At least then I wouldn't have any awareness of how I was cutting against the tide.

There was always the feeling, too, that I needed to keep some things to myself, because no-one would ever understand. Those habits had started when I was very young, and they were ingrained in my behaviour to the point that it was hard even to catch myself in the act.

But even if no-one could understand, it didn't mean no-one would listen.

Kevin punched me lightly on the shoulder. "Hey. Don't clam up on me now. I'm here. You got it?"

I looked up at him, my moment of melancholy washed away by gratefulness. "I get it, man."

"Good," he nodded, tilting his head back and eyeing me. His glasses caught the sunlight fully now, and shone for a moment, making him look like a deranged scientist. "Now talk. What happened? Why did you leave, and why did you come back?"

* * *

"Hestia," Kevin repeated, for the twentieth time.

I'd talked for a solid hour, explaining everything, from my last encounter with Jake Wilson right up to the events of the last day. I even included the whole piece of darkness story. Kevin deserved to know the full truth.

I'd told parts and pieces to Chiron and other people, but it felt good to lay it out in a cohesive narrative. It gave me perspective on what had happened, and on why things had unfolded in this way. For once, I understood that phrase, "the talking cure". Sometimes there's nothing like telling your story, even if there's just one guy listening.

That one guy, meanwhile, was having a real hard time grasping the part where I'd been blessed by an ancient goddess who'd had a time-transcending apocalyptic vision and then made a trip back in time to effectively set the events of that apocalypse in motion.

"So let me get this straight," he said, raising both his hands. The breastplate lay on the grass next to him, long forgotten. "Not only are you the first mortal in _centuries_ to have pure sight, and not only are you the chosen one named in the be-all and end-all of prophecies, but your big destiny was also foreseen by one of the senior Olympians in the time-warping aftermath of the most important mythological battle _ever_?"

I nodded. "Yeah. You've just about got it now."

We sat in silence for a long moment, me twiddling my thumbs, Kevin staring out across the lake.

He blew out a long sigh, and shook his head.

"Man," he said. "I've heard of predestination, but that is really ridiculous. Wouldn't it have been easier for the Fates to hang a sign around your neck that says, I dunno, ' _world-saving sucker_ '?"

"Thank you for your support, Kevin, I'm glad you appreciate the gravity of my position," I said drily, giving him a disappointed glare.

My friend went quiet, and his aura sparked into activity around him, flickering like an ethereal brain monitor as his mighty strategist's mind began to churn through the data. I just sat, watched a few nereids squabble under the water close to us, and waited for him to output the dramatic insights I'd missed.

I checked my watch. It was nearly noon. Not long until lunch, and not long until we had to leave on the mission. Perhaps I should have been working harder to be combat-ready, but I knew it wouldn't make any difference. I couldn't see Nyx being so pedestrian as to test us by making us fight. The best way for Kevin and me to be ready was if we were clear on what the hell was going on.

As if on cue, Kevin looked up from the grass at which he'd been staring intently, and said, "You know what this means, right?"

"Oh, sure I do," I said cheerily, watching at one nereid hit the other over the head with a half-finished basket. The basket broke in two, which seemed kind of counter-productive to me. "But I'd be even more sure if you told me."

The son of Ares missed the sarcasm. He sat up straighter, looking at me intently. "Something big is coming. Something game-changing that will alter the course of this war, maybe even decide it completely. So far, we've had a lot of important events, but none of them have made any real impact on people, apart from the gods and spirits. Now, though, we're on the edge of the _denouement_."

"Big word. How do you figure that one?"

"It all comes down to the positioning," he explained, making wide gestures as though moving pieces on a board. "You, for instance."

"Are you saying I've been _positioned_?" I said irritably, my outrage half-genuine.

"I'm afraid so," he said. "At least, you're _in_ a position. You're ready to take up your role, and you're prepared to face what's coming. As for the gods, it sounds like they're more afraid than ever, even more than during the Titan War. All these impromptu councils? Even when Kronos was banging the door down they refused to meet, except at the solstices. And now, _suddenly_ , Tartarus is powerful enough to threaten Olympus and demand one of his old artefacts."

"So you're saying…"

"I'm saying that things are _happening_. Events and strategies are converging. It's a _convergence._ " Kevin rubbed his brow. "We've been waiting for Tartarus to make his push for dominance. Well, it's happening now. This piece of darkness thing isn't another one of his tentative steps _towards_ his plan for world domination. This _is_ the plan."

I gulped. I didn't understand how the pieces fitted together as well as Kevin seemed to, but I trusted his insight. He didn't just have a strategist's mind, he had a survivor's instinct. "So what do you think he's going to do?" I said, speaking carefully, as though just asking the question would summon Tartarus up from his prison.

Kevin sighed, and folded his arms again. The sun passed behind a cloud, and his glasses stopped reflecting blinding light into my eyes. He stopped looking like a mad genius, and now was just another guy struggling to pick all the jigsaw pieces out of the river.

"I think he'll make a grab for the piece of darkness as soon as he can," he said finally. "From what you've told me, that's all he needs to overpower the gods. He's hoping that they'll - _we'll_ make a mistake, and then he'll probably use Jake Wilson to take his power back."

"So what do we do? There must be a way out. We're not powerless and doomed." I paused " _Are_ we?"

Kevin took a worryingly long time to answer that question.

"We can protect the piece of darkness," he said, looking across the lake with an unreadable gaze. "We find out where it is and get it here as fast as we can. We don't fall for any of Tartarus's tricks, and we get ready for the surprise, because I guarantee it, the son of Chaos will have something in store that _none_ of us will ever see coming."

* * *

Unlike other, similarly important missions I'd been on, this quest was dispatched as quietly as possible. At two o'clock, Kevin, Olivia and I assembled in Chiron's office, all of us tight with nerves and uncertainty. The daughter of Hecate carried a backpack that carried so many enchanted stones, it gave off a faint aura.

"We've been gathering these in my cabin for months now," Olivia explained, in response to my puzzled glance. Chiron came into the office and shut the door as she spoke. "I took as much as I could carry, in case we need to go straight from Nyx to the piece of darkness's location."

"Nyx is aware of your imminent arrival," Chiron said, sitting down in his magical wheelchair. It always amused me how the centaur folded himself in and out of that contraption while none of us ever paid any attention. I had long ago mentally replaced "Chiron got into his wheelchair" with "Chiron sat down". I wondered if that was a normal seating arrangement for a centaur, or if he got a special deal since he was the famous trainer of heroes.

I shook myself. My thoughts were wandering like a hyperactive demigod's conversation. I was way more nervous about this mission than was logical. It was just an information-gathering task, like visiting the library. Yet my stomach was tight almost to the point of nausea, and I kept clenching and unclenching my fists like a malfunctioning human machine.

I knew why. This was the first mission I'd faced since I'd seen those half-bloods die, and since I'd watched Tartarus threaten the heart of Olympian power. I was more aware than ever of the dangers that lay beyond camp borders, and I felt less equipped than ever to face those challenges.

No. That wasn't it.

I felt more _mortal_ than ever.

The only thing that kept me going was the thought that maybe, just maybe, my heightened awareness of what I faced would keep me sharp, and keep me and my friends alive.

Of course, also helpful to staying alive would be listening to Chiron. I beat my rambling thoughts into silence, and focussed on him.

"Nyx has indicated to Hermes that she will greet you cordially, which is more than she's done for some demigods. However, she gave absolutely no indication of whether or not she'll reveal the location of the piece of darkness. Your job is to convince her that it's in her best interests to tell you where it is."

"How exactly are we planning on doing _that_?" Olivia asked, shifting from foot to foot. Her aura was crackling like a thundercloud, but her expression was admirably composed. "Do you think we'll have a nice little chat and she'll agree with us, send us on our way with a nice little map and a hug and a kiss?"

Kevin and I exchanged amused glances. Chiron's expression barely flickered.

"Ideally, yes," he said flatly. "Failing that, Nyx will pose you a task, in which you will earn the information."

"What sort of task?" I asked, checking my dagger for the twentieth time.

"I have no idea," Chiron shrugged. "There are few records of Nyx's dealings with mortals. We are in uncharted territory. Nevertheless, I'm confident that you will overcome whatever obstacles she puts in your way."

He really sounded like he believed what he was saying. Absent-mindedly, I wondered if skills in self-delusion were a prerequisite for the role of mission planner in a demigod camp.

"How are we getting there? I'm guessing we're not just taking the bus?" Kevin asked. He didn't look nervous at all. His arms were folded and his feet were planted firmly. Even his aura was calm.

(Goddamn him.)

"We got lucky," Olivia said, her tone grim, as though to say we shouldn't get used to this strange phenomenon. She pointed at a map, the only thing on Chiron's desk. "This morning I found an old ley line chart. Children of Hecate can use the planet's natural ley line network for quanta transmission."

'Huh?" I said wisely. Kevin gave her an even wiser blank stare.

"Just imagine it's a massive subway system," she said, with an impatient jerk of her head. "The ley lines work like that. Once we get on them we can travel to any location on the planet that's on a line. Obviously a lot of places _aren't_ on the lines, like the Underworld—"

"Hades cut the Land of the Dead off from the planet's energy system," Chiron supplied. "He was afraid that someone in the Underworld might try to use the ley lines for their own nefarious ends."

( _But dead people are always so peaceful!_ I thought but did not dare say.)

"Okay," Olivia nodded. "But this is where we're lucky. Hecate's residence is at Daytona Beach, which is conveniently located at the end of a major line. I can have us there in two minutes."

"That's great," Kevin said, raising his eyebrows. "Maybe we'll be _really_ lucky and the piece of darkness will be on a ley line, too."

"Reality is never that helpful," the daughter of Hecate said darkly, withdrawing a small stone from her jeans pocket. "Are we all ready?"

Kevin nodded. I jerked my head in what was meant to be a nod, but with my ever-tightening muscles, it ended up being more like a spasm. Olivia glanced at Chiron, as she placed the stone in the palm of her upheld right hand.

The centaur inclined his head. "Good luck."

She gestured for us to join hands. We did so, Kevin and I both putting our hands on top of the stone. Olivia breathed in slowly, placed her free hand on top of ours, and exhaled sharply.

Once more, we plunged back into nothing.

* * *

Streaks of light sparked by us, like we were travelling along a train track lit by streetlights. Utter silence was around us, and I couldn't see my friends, or even my own body, nothing but the flickers of light. Everything was still. Time had no meaning. There was nothing but the dark, and the light that made it bearable.

And then, the green light grew brighter, clearer, sharper, until it filled everything, until I wanted to look away even though there was nowhere else to look, so I shut my eyes—

And a humid breeze hit my face, as solid ground appeared under my feet.

I staggered, nearly falling to my knees. We were standing… on a beach. On Daytona Beach. The sun blazed high in the sky above us, and an aggressively blue sea was lapping on our right. The sand was hard and compacted underfoot. People were hurrying to and fro around us, apparently uninterested by our magical appearance out of thin air.

"Ugh," I heard Kevin choke out. I glanced around. He was just behind me, kneeling on the ground with his head in his hands. Olivia stood over him, one hand resting on his shoulder, soft pulses of energy rippling from her aura into his.

"Sorry," he said, looking up at me. "I can't really take that kind of shi— shift. It's too much of an assault. Ugh."

I began to feel the heat of the sun, as my disorientation faded. We were close to the sea, just a few feet of sand between us and the water. Mortals were busy all along the beach, doing nice, non-monster related things. No-one paid us any notice. It was pleasant. Calm. I could have fun here, if I didn't have to worry about little things like apocalypses.

Olivia helped Kevin to his feet, and he shook his head briskly.

"Okay," he said, heaving a sigh. "I'm fine. What next?"

"Next," a soft voice said next to us, "would be saying hello, I imagine."

None of us even bothered to jump. We were so used to weirdo gods and spirits that this kind of thing didn't really surprise us any more.

But I did jump when I looked over my shoulder and thought Jane was standing there. It was a long, heart-stopping second before I saw the woman was too tall, too old.

I'd expected the goddess to be intimidating, but she looked more like a wistful Southern soul singer than anything else. Her skin was pale, and her long dark fell loosely down to her waist. Her clothes were ordinary, and her eyes a deep, attractive black. Her aura had the same colours and patterns as Jane's, but it was the nuclear-powered version. It burned around her, a singularity of shadow power, drawing my gaze like a visual black hole.

She turned her gaze from the sea, onto us, and raised one thin, dark eyebrow.

"Hello," said Nyx. "I believe you're here to kick the sleeping dog."


	10. Chapter Ten

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Ten**

* * *

 _"_ _I am the mother of all terrors!" Nyx cried. "The Fates themselves! Hecate! Old Age! Pain! Sleep! Death! And all of the curses! Behold how newsworthy I am!"_

–Rick Riordan, 'The House of Hades'

* * *

We faced the night goddess, shoulder to shoulder with one another. Nyx just looked at us, her pale features unreadable. Not even her aura gave an indication of her mood.

"Two demigods," she said, talking to herself. "And a mortal. How strange to receive visitors, after such a long time." She paused, frowning, then added, "Yet I am honoured to greet such noble _characters_."

I eyed her warily. Next to me, Olivia was bristling with tension, ready to spring into magical action at the drop of an eyebrow. Next to her, Kevin was relaxed and loose, deceptively calm, but I knew he was a flicker away from drawing his sword.

Nyx looked back at the sea for a moment, then turned to face us. She looked at Olivia first.

"Your mother is a fine goddess," she said, clasping her hands behind her back. "Strong in will and steadfast in principle. I have always respected her power and independence."

My heart skipped a beat or two. Nyx sounded like a more mature version of her daughter. Yet Olivia didn't seem to notice the resemblance, or else it didn't bother her. Her expression remained neutral. "Thank you. I'm sure she'd say the same of you."

"No, she wouldn't," Nyx replied, with a brief shake of her head, though she didn't seem angry. "Hecate has always been far too concerned with her own life to be interested in the greatness of anyone but herself."

Olivia shifted her weight, as though about to take a step forward, but she held herself back. Nyx gave her one last approving glance, before turning her razor-sharp concentration on Kevin.

"Son of Ares," she said, her tone colder now. The sea breeze picked up, blowing refreshing air in our faces. All around, mortal life went on, no-one even glancing in our direction.

"I have little respect for your father's… _methods_ ," Nyx lifted her chin, as though to look down on Ares's mere existence. "He is a brutish force, who does not recognise the importance of restraint, thoughtfulness and precision."

Kevin frowned, but didn't react. His aura was _still_ calm.

"My father is definitely a dangerous guy," he answered. I noticed his hands were loose at his sides, ready to go for his weapon. "That doesn't mean his children are all like that, too."

"Correct," Nyx said, for a crazy moment putting me in mind of a game show host. "The nature of your godly parent influences, but does not predetermine, your own character. You are free to make your own choices."

Kevin just nodded slowly, as though having a conversation with an amiable lioness. Nyx glanced him up and down, and then turned her focus on me.

I looked in her dark eyes, and felt a sort of indefinable pressure settle on me. For a moment, I was completely aware of how Nyx embodied all the things of the night: the peace and rest that comes only with sleep, the calming silence of the still darkness; but also the pain and frustration of a lonely, restless night, and the terror that comes with the nightmares.

"And you, Cyrus Wright," Nyx said, her black gaze unreadable. "The son of no god, but a mortal endowed by Hestia herself. You bear the gift of pure sight, but one wonders if it is more a curse than a blessing."

I stared back at her, my words gone from me like children fleeing before an approaching tank. These were only introductions, but in a flash, I knew they were far more important than that. _Everything_ we said could influence Nyx's final decision. It was a test, but we didn't know the questions, never mind the answers.

The goddess was still watching me, waiting. I swallowed, and said, "That's true. But then, maybe all gifts are curses _and_ blessings."

Nyx raised one eyebrow, but I couldn't tell if she was angry or impressed. Her aura was impenetrable to me, full of power and darkness yet somehow devoid of the impressions of emotion that I usually picked up. "A wise thing to say. It is a blessing that you can see through the tricks of the shadows, but it is a curse because it brings responsibility greater than even you understand."

She paused, glancing out to sea again. A trace of longing flicked through her eyes, gone nearly before I could register it. It was the first emotion I'd spotted in Nyx, and I wondered what it was about Poseidon's realm that drew such a feeling from her.

"What is that you want?" Nyx asked, looking back at Olivia.

"Information," the half-blood replied. "We request the location of a piece of darkness. We know that one is in the gods' possession, and that another is lost. We need to know where the third can be found."

Nyx nodded neutrally. "Very well. Come, take a walk with me."

She brushed past us and started walking down the beach before we even registered what she'd said. We just stared for a second, as she strode off without a backwards glance. The three of us exchanged confused looks, before our brains started to work again and we hurried after her.

"You're all wondering why I chose this place as my domicile," Nyx stated, didn't ask, as we caught up. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, as though on some distant goal.

"He—, uh, definitely," Kevin said, who was closest to the goddess. He glanced sidelong at Olivia and me, as if to say, _what's this about?_ I shrugged at him, and Olivia maintained her confused expression.

"I used to reside in the darkest places I could find," Nyx said. Her stride was long and her pace fast. We were just about keeping up. "I spent thirty years in the northernmost part of Alaska. It was beautiful. So peaceful. Almost as fine as my time in Greenland."

She heaved an appreciative sigh, her memories of wonderfully freezing cold, pitch-dark, barren wastelands somehow inspiring palpable joy. We just listened, and scurried.

"The events of the Titan War changed my views, however," Nyx went on, finally glancing around at us. The sea breeze picked up again, making her hair billow with implausible melodrama. "I realised that it is a mistake to ceaselessly take refuge in my greatest strengths. When a moment arrives, and I find myself forced from my resources, I am left with nothing but my flaws. As the goddess of the night, I must confront my own shadow."

Our group of four split in two to pass around a congregation of parked motorcycles. For a brief moment, I was walking alone with Olivia.

"What's she _doing_?" she hissed. "We don't have _time_ for this."

"I don't know," I whispered back, as low as I could. The goddess probably couldn't hear us - those bikers were pretty damn noisy - but then you never know with these supernatural types. "Let's just run with it. We don't have much choice."

We rejoined the goddess and Kevin, who looked simultaneously baffled and fascinated, a peculiar expression unique to him.

"Thus, it was clear to me that if I am to be a truly strong goddess, I must seek out the things that make me weak, and confront them," Nyx was saying. She sounded so much like Athena, it was creepy. "None of the other gods understand this, of course, but then I have always been ahead of the pack."

She glanced at us. Kevin and I nodded politely, and Olivia began to reply but, quite abruptly, something to her right caught her eye.

"Oh my gods," she whispered, stopping dead. My momentum kept me moving forward a few steps before I stopped, along with Kevin and Nyx. We looked back at Olivia.

The daughter of Hecate stood stock-still, staring at thin air with utmost concentration. Her hands were clutching together, clasping and unclasping, and her aura was flickering and sparking with all possible shades of green and blue.

"What is it?" I said.

Olivia drew in a shaky breath, and pointed. "It's my mother. She's just there. Look."

We followed her quivering finger. She was pointing toward the wall that divided the beach and the promenade, as though there was someone standing there, but I could see nothing except the passers-by who'd been ignoring us since we'd arrived.

"Olivia," Kevin murmured, taking a half-step towards her. "There's no-one there."

"There is!" she exclaimed, not looking around. Her eyes were wide now, manic with frantic emotion that was starting to consume her. "She's _there_. She's beckoning me. She— she has something. Look, I'll be right back."

She leaned forward, as though to dash to what she saw, but she didn't move. She just tilted forward, a strange sight, like long grass bending to the wind.

"I— I can't move," Olivia gasped, still staring blindly. Her aura was snapping with light now, chaotic and moving faster every second. "My feet, they're so heavy. What's going on?"

"Olivia," Kevin repeated, stepping towards her.

"No!" she snapped, her gaze flickering towards us for a nanosecond. "She's _there_. Just _let me move_!"

All the colour had drained from her face. Kevin looked back at me, his eyes pleading, as though I had the answer. Nyx stood behind us, silent. I swallowed, and let my pure sight fill my vision, clarifying everything.

Olivia's aura came into sharper focus, the colours growing stronger, and the emotions that were swamping her started to spill into me. As I looked upon her restless aura, I felt impressions of fear, anger, loss, frustration and confusion, secondhand feelings that were still strong enough to make me wince. They spiked through my mind, in tune to her aura's pulses of colour.

Kevin was saying something else, but I wasn't listening. I'd felt this kind of empathy before when I'd used my sight, but it had never been useful. Now, maybe I could put it to work.

I took a deep breath, concentrating, keeping my pure sight fully engaged, and stepped towards Olivia. Two steps, three, four, and I was next to her. She didn't react to me as she had to Kevin, even as I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. Her aura was coursing around her, a psychic thunderstorm moving at impossible velocity. Her face was straining, every muscle in her body was straining, as she tried to force herself to move.

"Olivia," I murmured, trying to reach back down that connection of empathy. All of her emotions were running through me now, and I embraced the rush of feeling, seeking the way through it, an opening into her besieged mind.

Olivia suddenly lurched forward, stumbling a couple of steps. I moved with her, keeping my hand clamped on her shoulder. I heard noises behind me, and vaguely recognised that Kevin was arguing with Nyx.

" _Olivia_ ," I said, more forcefully. There was a pattern in her tangled emotions. Fear, anger, loss, and then desperation, over and over, like damaged clockwork. She was caught in a loop, but something about it seemed alien, like it had been imposed on her.

Then I understood. It was a _program_ , running on and on, but each time it looped there was a pause, a breath of air, a _gap_. I focussed on that, timing it by my breathing, waiting, and then—

" _Wake up_."

The right words, at the right moment. I connected with the daughter of Hecate in the space between bursts of emotion, my words forcing a way through the storm, aided by the empathy link. Instantly, I felt the cycle break. Olivia drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and looked around at me.

"Cyrus," she whispered, her eyes glassy, but her aura already calming, the storm breaking. "What happened?"

"A spectre. A waking dream," pronounced Nyx. Suddenly she was standing next to us. "Tartarus is always dispatching these psychic menaces to trouble we who support the Olympians. Think nothing of it, the aftereffects will be gone soon. "

Kevin hurried around me, and enveloped Olivia in one of his trademark bear hugs.

"It's alright," he soothed, as she drew long, shaky breaths. "It was an illusion. It's over. Just breathe."

As he calmed Olivia down, I looked at Nyx. "A spectre," I repeated. "Tartarus is sending out _psychic menaces_ now, huh?"

"Oh yes," the goddess nodded at me. Her innocent expression would have been convincing, if it weren't the first attempt at facial expression she'd made since we'd arrived. "It's a regular occurrence, particularly near a god's residence. It may well happen again. Be on your guard, my friends."

She glanced at said friends. Kevin looked more shaken than Olivia, who was already regaining her composure.

"I think we can walk on," Nyx said coolly, after a moment. She turned, and began striding down the beach again.

"Is she _crazy_?" Kevin hissed, glancing between me and Olivia, but the daughter of Hecate shook her head.

"No, she's not," she said, her eyes steady now. Her aura had cleared quickly, as though the whole thing had been a brief dream. "She's not crazy, she's the night. Let's keep up with her."

Sounding as cryptic as the goddess herself, Olivia hurried after her. Kevin threw his hands up in the air. "This is so freaking weird weird," he muttered. "Nice job there, by the way."

"Thanks," I said vaguely, feeling overwhelmed. I glanced around the beach, but still no-one seemed to have noticed us. It was like we were invisible, just ghosts wandering along the beach. Hell, maybe we were already dead and we just hadn't realised it yet.

I shook myself. Now wasn't the time for morbidness. We had to get out of here before we were all driven crazy.

We started walking again, and rejoined the other two, who were having a nice calm discussion, as though Olivia hadn't just had some kind of psychotic episode.

"So what happens if Tartarus gets back this piece of darkness?" Olivia was asking, totally composed, though her hand was twitching towards her sword every now and then.

Nyx looked like she was enjoying her nice walk at the beach. She glanced around at Kevin and me as we caught up, before saying, "Tartarus regaining even that one fragment of his power is a reality so grim that I would rather not contemplate it."

"Well, we've got to talk about _something_ ," Olivia reasoned.

I wiped sweat from my brow. The Florida heat, eased as it was by the sea air, was starting to get to me. My mouth was drier than the sand we were walking on.

"Very well," Nyx muttered, sounding amused. "Currently, Tartarus is highly dangerous from a distance, but if he were to confront any of the Olympians in close-quarters, he would be easily overcome. If, however, he regains a piece of darkness, he would be able to overpower all but the most powerful of gods in direct combat."

I gulped. The more I learned about these pieces of darkness, the more disturbing they sounded. I just hoped I wouldn't have to look after one. It'd be like holding the detonator remote to a nuclear bomb, and knowing me, I'd probably hit the button by accident.

"And what if he got _all_ three?" Kevin asked, glancing past me to look at Nyx. "How bad would things be _then_?"

I gave him a grumpy look, and nearly walked into a rubbish bin. Was it really necessary to make everything sound even _worse_? It's like demigods have an obsession with making these things as dramatic and doom-laden as possible. It's not _healthy_.

"That's not possible," Nyx said dismissively, making me feel better. "In any case, if that _were_ to happen, there would be nothing left. The son of Chaos would sweep his veil of power over everything."

We walked in silence for a while after that.

For the first time, I wondered if our battle with Tartarus was actually futile. It wasn't like he was just going to go away if we waited long enough. He was only going to get stronger, more dangerous, and more confident, as we failed again and again. And the son of Chaos wasn't even the _only_ bad guy out to get us. We were always talking about the primordial being, but what his buddy Jake Wilson? And what about Wilson's old mistress Rhea, the one who'd been the start of all this? What if _they_ started unleashing grand plans just when we were on the ropes from Tartarus's haymaker?

"And where does Rhea come in?" I said, looking at Nyx again. The goddess had started tying her hair as she walked, casual as can be.

"Rhea is a problem," she shrugged. "Hades believes that the fallout from the ritual at the solstice destroyed her prison."

" _What_?" Olivia cried, coming to an abrupt stop, and just as abruptly starting to walk again, as though afraid of being caught by that nightmare.

"Oh yes," Nyx spoke like she was delivering a weather report. "Traces of her presence and power have been appearing around the continent. Some of the smaller disturbances that are happening have been caused by her. She is weak still, and does not yet pose a real threat, but one thing is certain. She is not interested in a dialogue with the gods."

The three of us all had the same thought, at the same time.

"But what happens if the two of them team up?" Olivia asked, her eyes widening in horror. She looked around at us all. "Tartarus and Rhea, working together? How will we survive _then_?"

Nyx opened her mouth to reply, when suddenly Kevin grabbed my arm and pulled me a stop.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, looking at me intently.

I blinked at him. "Um. What?"

His blue eyes narrowed, and flickered around the beach, scanning passers-by, as though waiting for them to attack. "Someone called my name. _There_! There it was again. A man's voice. You hear it?"

I frowned, listening, but I heard nothing except the hubbub of people moving, talking, shouting, living. I shook my head. "I don't hear it. Are you sure it wasn't the wind or something? It's getting very breezy…"

"No," Kevin shook his head. Then his eyes widened. "There it was again!"

He moved fast, turning away from me and starting to run back the way we'd come—

But he froze mid-step, his foot halfway through the air, his expression twisting with frustration.

"I can't move," Kevin said, very low, very quiet, the way he got when he was furious. "What's happening? _Dad_ , is that you?"

His eyes narrowed again, as he listened to whatever phantom had gotten into his head. I stood there, feeling helpless. The exact virus that had struck Olivia was forcing itself on my best friend. I reached for my pure sight, but I only saw what I expected. Kevin's aura, normally a calm brown mixed with grey, was trembling and spiking, churning with anger and longing, a psychic Richter scale in 3-D colour.

"Kevin?" Olivia asked, just behind me. "Can you hear me?"

The son of Ares didn't respond, still straining to dash towards the non-existent voice of his father. I glanced over my shoulder - Olivia was looking back and forth between me and him, while Nyx was standing still, watching, her arms folded. I looked at Kevin, then back at the night goddess, and for a split second I met her eyes. Her dark eyes, full of secrets and power that none of us could imagine.

I understood.

This was the test.

Tartarus wasn't sending out phantom psychic disturbances. That was a ridiculous idea. He was the god of shadows and monsters, of ethereal menaces, but not the shadows of the mind. Nyx had told us a simple lie, one that was easy to believe. S _he_ was inflicting these mental tortures on my friends. She was queen of the night, mistress of nightmares and fractured dreams, and she was using her subtlest powers to drag our weaknesses out under the merciless Southern sun.

I turned back to Kevin, and swallowed. It was a macabre, sick sort of test, like screaming in someone's ear just to see how high they could jump, but that didn't matter. We had to pass Nyx's trials, no matter how twisted they were. I stepped towards my friend, my hand outstretched, as I'd done with Olivia. I tuned into the working of power that was twisted around him, and now that I was looking for it, I sensed the same kind of cold, calm power that shrouded around Nyx.

I steadied my breathing, synching myself with the loops of frustration and desperation that were pulsing through Kevin, turning over and over, emotional clockwork. The rhythm was similar to Olivia's psychic trap, though it had a different cycle. That didn't matter much. I waited one breath, two, following the cycling passions, and when Kevin hit the end of the loop—

" _Wake up_ ," I said forcefully, giving him a little shake, trying as hard as I could to imbue my voice with authority. Immediately, I felt the energy of Nyx's psychic program shatter, and Kevin's eyes refocussed. He drew in a rattling breath, as a sleeper emerging from a harrowing dream would, and he met my gaze.

Then I saw her.

She came in a blink, appearing out of nowhere, just over Kevin's shoulder, standing at the edge of the beach, almost in the sea. Her arms were folded, but Hestia was looking at me directly, and I knew that she needed to talk to me.

Kevin was saying something - thanking me? I don't know, it didn't matter. His voice was fading away, and in a moment I'd forgotten he was even there. I saw only Hestia, and the distance between us. She extended a hand towards me, nodding, reassuring me, and I knew she was here to give me peace, give me tranquility, give me _freedom_.

I took a step towards her.

Except I didn't.

Every one of my muscles had turned to stone. I was a frantic mind sealed in solid rock. I strained, screaming at myself to move, pushing as though I was about to die, but the harder I forced the stiller I became. Hestia was looking more urgent. I was running out of time. With a movement of tremendous effort, I managed to drag myself forward one step, but the distance between me and the goddess was widening, yawning out between us, a void of concrete.

But _no_ , I decided, I had to get there. I would not give up. I pushed harder, but it was like trying to punch out Zeus. It was horrible. It was like some sort of—

Nightmare.

A chill went through me, the first physical sensation I'd had since I'd seen Hestia. Realisation trickled around my mind, as comprehension dawned, word by word, the way it always does in strange dreams.

I blinked. Hestia seemed oddly transparent, like a reflection or a ghost or a projection. Sensation was edging back into my body, tentatively, as though waiting to see if it was safe.

This wasn't real. Nyx had put me straight into one of her constructed nightmares after I'd gotten Kevin out of his. It was just a dream, an illusion of something that I wanted. It wasn't real.

I focussed on that, as the falsified feelings of frustration and fear began to fade into the background of my mind, returning to whatever primordial soup emotions are born from. It wasn't real. It was a trick. I kept saying that, over and over, refusing to believe in what I saw before me—

I woke up.

"—rus, can you hear me?" Kevin said next to me. I turned and looked at him, blinking rapidly. He met my eyes, and started backwards.

"How did you do that?" he asked, staring at me as though I'd just sucker-punched Tartarus himself.

"What?" I blinked some more. My eyes were dry, gritty.

"Pull yourself out like that," he replied, shaking his head. "You just woke yourself up. Neither of us could do that."

I shrugged, the effects of the nightmare melting off me already. "I don't know, man. What I _want_ to know is," I turned around to look at Nyx. Olivia caught the grim look in my eyes, and quickly edged out of my way, "what the hell was _that_ supposed to be? I thought you were going to _test_ us, not screw with our heads like we're your psychic playthings."

Nyx barely moved, just raised her eyebrow. "That _was_ the test, Cyrus Wright. I do not favour the dramatic methods of challenging mortals enjoyed by my fellow gods. Did you expect a trek up a flaming mountain, or a battle with yet another slavering beast? How tedious. No, my friends, the night does not work in such obvious ways. I cannot test your worth if you _know_ it is being tested."

She spread her hands out before her, palms up, and the air over them shimmered. A small scroll of papyrus faded into her hands.

"You have passed the test," Nyx informed us. The three of us exchanged sidelong, bemused glances. "You will find the piece of darkness in a ghost town with which one of your number is already familiar. To ease your passage, I offer you these numbers, which I believe the mortals call GPS coordinates."

Despite the bizarre events of the last half-hour, or perhaps because of the strain, I nearly burst out laughing. I'd been expecting some kind of cryptic riddle that led to an anagram that led to a magical map which would reveal the ancient artefact to be hidden under the bed. I certainly hadn't been anticipating _GPS coordinates_.

Olivia was as surprised as me. She hesitated before reaching out to take the scroll, staring at it for a minute before remembering to say, "Thank you, Lady Nyx."

The goddess inclined her head. "You have proven your abilities to overcome challenges of the deepest nature, and you have demonstrated your inner strength. I am proud to send you on this task. Go now."

Nyx made a eye-blink fast gesture. On either side of me, shadows howled. By the time I glanced around, Olivia and Kevin were already gone.

"What—" I started to say, but Nyx silenced me with an icy glance.

"I have a final word for you, Lightbringer," she stared at me with frightening intensity. "This test was intended to challenge the three of you, but its focus was on one of you in particular."

I held her gaze, and gulped.

"You mean—"

"I mean that I would not surrender such valuable information to someone of such importance in the narrative that is unfolding around us, if I were not certain of that person's integrity," Nyx turned, so that I saw only her profile. "I was already sure of your companions' strength. I was not certain of yours. Now, I am." She turned her head and looked me in the eye. "I hope that you can gain that same confidence, before it is too late for us all."

She smiled, and when the shadows rose this time, they engulfed me.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Eleven**

* * *

 _Mycroft: Oh, Sherlock, what do we say about coincidences?_

 _Sherlock: The universe is rarely so lazy._

–'Sherlock' ('His Last Vow')

* * *

We rematerialised in Chiron's office, on the exact spot we'd left some two hours ago. The centaur started, and looked up at us in shock.

"What happened?" he asked, looking shocked. "Did Nyx banish you? Why are you back so quickly?"

"So quickly?" Olivia and Kevin echoed. "It's been two hours," I said, as I checked my watch.

It was 3:15.

We'd left at _3:10_.

I mouthed the time and stared at my watch for a while, before I put two and two together.

"She put us in a dream," I realised. I looked at the other two. "The _whole thing_ was a dream, from the moment we arrived in Florida. Nyx was in control the entire time."

"Oh, hell," Kevin said, paling, while Olivia just shook her head dismissively.

"That doesn't matter," she said, unrolling the scroll on the desk. "Chiron, we got the coordinates for the piece of darkness. Do you have something we can look them up on?"

The centaur nodded, his initial shell-shocked expression shifting into one of eagerness. He opened the top drawer of his desk, withdrew and unlocked a wooden box that held a bronze-plated tablet computer.

The three of us gathered around the scroll. Inscribed upon it in thin, elegant handwriting, were the GPS numbers, along with a few words in Ancient Greek which I couldn't read.

"Read them out," Chiron said, as he opened Google Earth. "I'll put them in."

As Olivia gave him the numbers, I wondered if this was the first time that Google Earth had been used to save the world. I glanced at Kevin. As usual, his arms were folded and his expression was neutral, but for once his foot was tapping, his aura shivering with excitement. Chiron typed quickly, and nodded when he put in the last number. He turned the screen, so we could all watch as the app did its slow-motion zoom down onto Earth.

(I felt like there ought to be cinematic music playing. This surely had to be the most dramatic use of three-dimensional mapping technology in history.)

It zoomed onto America (already a relief, I didn't fancy hunting for the artefact in Siberia or something), panning down onto one of those south-west states, Oklahoma or New Mexico, it moved too fast for me to see. It shot down onto a wide expanse of desert, until a clump of houses and other buildings came into view in the centre of the screen.

The three of us just stared at it. The place looked special only because it was so completely mundane. Chiron's reaction was a bit stronger. He inhaled sharply, as though he'd been struck.

"This place," he breathed, staring at the aerial view of the town like it was a ghost come back to ask for insurance. He looked up at us, his eyes glassy. "It's unbelievable. This place, again. Jack Mills, of _all_ people."

"What are you talking about?" Kevin asked, taking a step forward. "Chiron?"

"Wait a minute," Olivia said, rifling through the papers on the desk. "Chiron, is that near Albuquerque?"

"Yes. An abandoned town, not far from there."

The daughter of Hecate smiled to herself. "I _knew_ it."

"What _is_ it?" I asked, sharing a frustrated glance with Kevin.

"One of the ley lines passes through the place," Olivia replied, yanking a map from the bottom of a jumble of paper, nearly ripping it in her enthusiasm. "I noticed it on the map because it's shaped really weirdly, like it had been _bent_ on purpose. Look, here." She laid the map on the floor, shooing Kevin and me to one side.

It was a map of the southern United States, but the only normal cartographic information it showed were state names. Instead of river markings or altitude measurements, it had only snaking red lines, some thick, others thin. A thick one passed down the coast of Florida before splitting in two, one half heading off into the Atlantic, the other curling west. A number of ley lines came within a few miles of California and stopped dead, as though they'd disappeared into the earth.

"Here," Olivia said, kneeling on the floor. She placed her finger on a thick line that snaked through New Mexico. It was arrow-straight for many miles, before making an abrupt right angle. The map showed no markings of towns or cities, but Olivia drew a circle at a point just after the corner.

"This must be where it is," she said, looking up at us with sparkling green eyes. "The piece of darkness must be causing this bend in the ley lines."

"Is that possible?" Kevin asked Chiron, who had finally put down the tablet.

"It is. It's very likely, in fact. So likely that if Nyx hadn't given you the coordinates, I was planning on analysing the ley line maps for some clue like this."

"This is great," Olivia stood up. "This means we can get there within minutes. We need to assemble a team right away."

Chiron nodded, and began to extricate himself from the wheelchair. "That's right. You three go and tell the counsellors to prepare for conflict, then report here immediately. We need to leave now, while we have the advantage of time. I'll notify the gods."

Kevin nodded. "Okay."

He and Olivia headed for the door, leaving the map where it lay on the floor. I, however, had another issue.

"Wait, wait, one second," I said, holding up my hands. "Let's get everything out in the open here. What _is_ this place, Chiron? Who's Jack Mills?"

Chiron straightened up to his full height, and met my gaze. There was a sadness in his eyes, but also a spark of hope which I hadn't seen since before I'd left camp.

"Get Alice," he said. "She can explain this far better than I."

* * *

My friends and Chiron hurried around camp, gathering the half-bloods. I went searching for Alice, my thoughts moving as fast as the harried counsellors around me.

I still hadn't recovered from Nyx's weird test, and already we were about to head to the site of the piece of darkness. If I'd been nervous before, now I was on the edge of panic. The closer we got to confronting Tartarus, the nearer I drew to actually doing something important. That scared me: I'd accepted my fate, but I sure as hell didn't know what I was going to do when destiny came looking for my contribution.

Then there was the other, more obvious issue. I had no idea what we were going to run into at this mysterious ghost town. Tartarus's artefact could be guarded by all manner of monsters and ghouls. I'd never exactly been a fan of monsters and ghouls, sure, but after the battle at the Underworld, the prospect of more combat inspired a whole new level of dread in me.

I was hurrying past the lake, wrapped up in my philosophising, when Percy stepped off the pier where they kept the canoes.

"Cyrus!" he called, bringing me to an abrupt halt.

"Hi," I panted. I'd been moving at _least_ as fast as my racing brain.

"What's going on?" Percy's brow crumpled in confusion. "Chiron galloped by a minute ago. He said you guys found something. Is that right? He said something else, but I was sort of underwater at the time and I didn't hear properly."

I smiled. Even at moments like this, Percy managed to be his usual goofy self. "We just got back from Nyx. She gave us the coordinates for the piece of darkness." I explained everything about the ley lines and Chiron's familiarity with the location. Percy's eyes widened in amazement as I went through it, and he nodded when I finished.

"I think I know what that town is," he said. "Nico told me about it. Cool, we know we're where headed. I'll go suit up. You'd better do the same, man."

He turned to head to his cabin. I turned, too, to check the archery range for Alice, but then a thought occurred to me.

"Percy, wait." I turned back. The half-blood paused, glancing around. "I was wondering," I said slowly, feeling awkward. I'd never discussed any of my Lightbringer stuff with Percy, and it was like letting him in on a secret. "How did you deal with, you know. All this."

I'd been hoping he'd understand me implicitly, but nuance wasn't really Seaweed Brain's speciality. He raised one eyebrow. "Huh?"

"You know what I mean," I said, even though he obviously didn't. "Being _the_ guy. The person people expect things from. The one who's meant to… well, save the day."

Percy frowned in thought for a moment, and I wondered if I really needed to make things clearer. Then, his face relaxed into a sympathetic expression.

"Look, it's not easy," he nodded. "There's a lot of pressure, most of it really coming from yourself. It makes things complicated. You wonder about _everything_ , and it feels like you're never going to reach the end of the battle."

"Yeah," I said, holding Percy's steady gaze.

"But, honestly, that's the job," he shrugged. "You have to forget about it. It's not going to go away, so you have to live with it, and you can't do that by trying to be anyone but yourself. It's…" He paused, glancing across the lake. I waited, hoping he wasn't about to deliver the kind of anticlimactic advice that I always seemed to be getting.

"Well, I've never thought about this much," Percy said, with a smile. "But the truth is that you just gotta make sure you're making choices you can live with. It's not about the world, or the gods, or destiny. It's about doing what you know to be right." He looked back at me. "And believe me, you'll always know what the right thing is, if you really listen."

I thought of that moment Hestia had shown me, when Percy had had to choose whether or not to hand Luke the knife. It would have been easier, then, to make the wrong choice, but Percy had done just what he said: he'd listened, and he'd seen what he needed to do.

"Alright," I said, nodding. "I see. Thanks, Percy."

The son of Poseidon grinned. "And just remember, if the world ends after _I_ saved it, I'm gonna be really, _really_ mad with the guy who screwed things up."

And with that, he was gone.

I checked the archery range and the dining pavilion, but I didn't find Alice. Getting frustrated, and aware of how little time was left, I headed for the Hermes cabin to get my breastplate. I dashed across camp, afraid that I'd be the only one missing when everyone assembled at the Big House.

I ran past the cabins and up the steps outside mine. I didn't slow as I went through the Hermes door, and nearly collided with Anna as she came out.

"Anna!" I exclaimed, yet again coming to an abrupt halt. This couldn't be good for my heart. "Did you hear what's happening?"

"No," she said, giving me her trademark vacant look.

I quickly repeated what I'd told Percy. Anna looked surprised when I'd finished, though not as astonished as the son of Poseidon had been.

"Wow," she shook her head. "I didn't think we'd be able to move so quickly. Um. I need a few minutes to get everything together."

"Okay. I have to get my stuff, too."

We went into the cabin together. It was quiet, just a couple of campers sprawled on their beds. I went to my bed, strapped on my breastplate and grabbed a few other supplies. Then I went back to Anna, who was buckling on her sword.

The daughter of Hermes looked grim. "Hades, Cyrus, I wonder if there's any point to this."

"What do you mean?" I asked. We spoke quietly, but the couple of Hermes kids were paying us no notice, lost in whatever semi-awake stupor falls upon the overly-taxed demigod.

"Nothing's gone well for us, ever since this started," Anna said, checking her armour. "From when Nico disappeared to now, we've just had a line of problems and disasters. It's never stopped."

Normally I'd disagree and try to encourage some optimism, but the problem here was that Anna was putting words to my exact thoughts. My adrenaline-fuelled good temper began to fizzle out as I returned to my normal state of considering the formerly half-empty glass to be smashed into many irretrievable pieces.

"Yeah," I muttered. "We haven't exactly been blessed with any kind of mythological good luck. Hell, I sometimes wonder if the Fates _want_ us to lose."

"That's right," Anna agreed, putting on her breastplate. "The thing is, I'm never going to give in. I _hate_ Tartarus. I love my dad, and I'll fight for him. But I'm just asking, is there any chance of us catching a break, or is _everything_ going to have a massive cost? Do all our victories have to be _bought_ with, with—" She stopped, staring down at the floor. Then she looked up at me. Her blue eyes were watery with tears, and when she spoke, her Southern lilt was cracked with sorrow. "Just look what happened to Josh."

I swallowed, and stood in silence as she finished preparing. I agreed with her. Hell, I'd thought like this even before I'd left camp. Was our battle futile? Even if we won, would it be at such a cost that we couldn't believe it was worth it? The grim reality of war was that neither side truly won. But how badly did we have to lose? How much would we have to sacrifice to save the little that remained?

But Anna's words reminded me of Nico. _He_ had never given up. Perhaps even now, he was fighting against the monster that controlled him. He'd shown me that it wasn't about war, or death, or what happened in the end. It was, as Percy had said, just a question of doing what you knew to be right.

"Coming?" She headed for the door. I didn't move.

"You're right, Anna," I said. My counsellor looked around at me. "Things are dark. We all know they're going to get darker." I met her eyes. "But we _have_ to keep going. Keep the light burning. We can't know how this story will end, so we can't give up hope. We can't assume we know the ending, because it hasn't been written yet."

Anna looked back at me for a long moment, then tilted her head, and smiled.

"Hades below, Cyrus," she said. "You got real philosophical while you were away."

I let Anna go ahead to the Big House. I'd thought of one other place Alice might be. I didn't want to go there, but I needed to find her.

Still, it was with a sense of trepidation that I headed for the Hades cabin. I'd found the daughter of Apollo in here by accident before, when I'd been feeling morose about Nico. She'd told me that she came here to reflect, maybe mourn a little. I hadn't gone back since, feeling that she needed it as a place of silence far more than I did.

Now, though, necessity was the destroyer of sympathy. I knocked on the door of the cabin quietly, but firmly. As I expected, there was no answer. I waited the necessary respectful moment, before opening the door and stepping inside.

Alice sat cross-legged on the bed nearest the door, gazing at the Stygian mirror on the wall opposite. She glanced up when she heard the door shut, starting to say something in protest, but then saw it was me.

"Oh," she said. "Hi."

"Hi," I nodded, standing next to her. Our reflections were blurry in Nico's Underworld mirror. It was a single oval of polished Stygian material, not iron, but certainly not glass either. The reflection was strange, more like a photographic negative than anything else. Light areas were dark, and black areas were bright; and the boundaries of things were fuzzy, as though drawn by an unskilled artist. It gave me a disconcerted feeling, like staring into what you thought was an empty place but finding that it's glaring right back.

"I haven't been here in a few months," Alice murmured. "I'd decided I needed to let everything go, everything that happened _before_ , just forget it. But after the last couple of battles, and what happened on Olympus, I wanted to remember."

I nodded. We were silent for another long moment. We were comfortable with each other's silence, more than we were with other people. The things we'd seen and done in the Underworld had forged a bond between Alice and me. It wasn't even that we were great friends. We just had the connection of understanding how the other felt, when it came to what we'd lost, and what we might still lose.

"Sometimes, I feel like he's still here," Alice said suddenly, looking up at me. Her blue eyes were steady, and her aura calm. "Not in a ghostly or a mournful way. I just think that he isn't lost completely, like there's something keeping him tied to who he used to be."

I frowned, nodding once more. I'd felt something similar. It was one of the reasons I'd come back, after all, but I'd been hesitant to voice it, lest it make me look even crazier than I already did. Alice saw this in my eyes.

"Yeah," she smiled a little. "Even though he's under some kind of mind control, I don't think he's actually _gone_. I know what it's like when someone close to me is gone. Two of my siblings died in the last six months. One of them was killed on the other side of the country, but I still knew, just before it happened. But Nico?" Alice paused, glancing around the room, and said, "When we first left the Edge, I thought he was dead. I was _sure_. But every day that's passed since then has made me _more_ sure of the opposite, sure that there's still hope for him."

I nodded again, starting to feel like one of those bobbing-head birds; but Alice had said it all.

"I came to tell you," I said, after another pause, "that we found out where the piece of darkness is."

"Oh?" Alice said, her eyes on the mirror again.

"Yeah. Nyx gave us coordinates. We showed them to Chiron, and he knows where it is. He said it's a ghost town, somewhere in New Mexico."

Alice's head turned on her neck so fast, she nearly gave herself whiplash. She stared up at me like I was the ghost of Nico himself. " _What_?"

"New Mexico," I repeated, surprised by her reaction. "Out in the middle of nowhere, I mean, I don't know how Chiron knows the place, but he said you could explain it to me. Olivia says we can travel there on the ley lines, we're leaving soon. Chiron mentioned he knows someone who lives there, some guy called Jack Mills."

Alice was off the bed and heading to the door before I'd finished saying "Mills". She paused with her hand on the doorknob.

"You're _sure_?" she asked, staring at me with a gaze that demanded the full truth. "You're absolutely _sure_ he said Jack Mills?"

I nodded, looking at in confusion. "Why, what…?"

Then, finally, I remembered what Nyx had said.

 _You will find the piece of darkness in a ghost town with which one of your number is already familiar._

"You've already been there," I breathed. "When?"

"With Nico." Alice opened the door. Her aura was trembling now. "When we were on the quest with Jake, to retrieve the Flame of Olympus. The quest that started all this, I guess. I can't believe we're going back. Just the same as how we went back to Alcatraz."

"Yeah. That _is_ weird. It's like we're following a path, but we don't know where it's going or what's at the end."

Alice couldn't wait any longer. "I'll be at the Big House. See you in a minute." She was gone before I could reply, even though I felt like there was something else I needed to say, something that had slipped my mind.

I stood in the silent cabin for a moment, breathing deep. As I'd made overly clear to too many people, I wasn't big on the idea of destiny. That events were preordained, that certain people were chosen to fulfil certain roles, seemed a childish notion to me. But all these recurring patterns, places and people were starting to change my mind.

Maybe, just maybe, there was some grand design to it all. A great clockwork behind the madness, dragging us along in the wake of its mighty grinding gears, heedless of anything but our contribution to the final goal, whatever that was.

I sighed, brushing my hair back with one hand. I stepped over to the door, and as I opened it, I glanced back at the Stygian mirror.

All my breath left me.

Somehow, impossibly, I hadn't thought of this before, but now I realised: that mirror hadn't been there the last time I'd been in the cabin. I'd never seen it before in my life, but for some reason I'd believed it had _always_ been there.

I gulped, and blinked on my pure sight.

The mirror looked little different in the light of clear vision, except there was a slight haze of greyness around its edges. A perception filter, I suppose, designed to make anyone looking at it forget that it was new. I could see nothing else suspicious, and I shook my head. Maybe it was just part of the cabin's design, or else an odd trinket sent by Hades. Hell, maybe it _had_ been there before and I'd never noticed it.

But when I stepped outside, and glanced in one last time before shutting the door, I almost thought I saw a shape in the mirror.

A human shape, in the middle of the oval glass, motionless but certainly alive, a shape that for all the world appeared to be the reflection of someone who stood watchful at the centre of the cabin.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twelve**

* * *

 _Rustin Cohle: This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory's fading. It's like there was never anything here but jungle._

 _Martin Hart: Stop saying shit like that. It's unprofessional._

–'True Detective'

* * *

We emerged from nothing into Nowhere, New Mexico, like ghosts returning to a forgotten home.

All of camp's counsellors had come. Chiron insisted on sending a strong force to give the piece of darkness full protection, and to show Jack how serious the situation was, in the hope it would encourage him to help us. I requested Kevin's inclusion on the team, too, on the grounds that he was a major part of the mission anyway. He was standing next to me when we appeared in the town.

Olivia again took care of transportation, this time using a couple of her stones to boost her strength; but for this mission, she wasn't the commanding demigod.

"I would prefer if Alice took charge," Chiron told us, back on the Big House porch where we'd assembled. "Percy and Annabeth will be combat leaders in the event of any conflict, though I expect that it will be a brief, straightforward trip. Since Alice knows Jack already, it makes sense for her to take the lead."

The daughter of Apollo was not exactly overwhelmed with joy about getting this assignment, but she took it with her usual stoicism.

Other than those few arrangements, we left without any further discussion. Chiron gave us his usual, mournfully unconvincing, "Good luck," and Olivia whisked us off down the ley lines to our next head-bangingly frustrating problem.

(I'm sorry, but the time for optimism is long past.)

And now, here we were, in some special place in the middle of America, with none of us possessing a single clue of what the hell was going to happen next.

As I looked around, I felt like I was on the set of a 1950s western. It was one of those uniquely American towns, everything built from wood and no more than four stories high, with the size of the town restrained by the encroaching presence of the desert. It was a _seriously_ rundown place. Everywhere was shut and abandoned. Some places were boarded up so heavily, not even a steamroller was getting into them. Others had rusty shutters down and grimy doors locked, and a few forlorn shops were just empty, their doors swinging in the breeze. Listening to one of those doors creak, I was unnerved. It felt like hearing a spirit calling out for peace.

We stood on the main street. Only two buildings at the far end of it showed signs of life: there was a tavern with an empty chair by the door, and the half-finished bottle of liquor sitting on the floor by it suggested a nearby presence. Across the road from that place, a sweeping brush rested against a wall, near a patch of freshly-cleared ground.

"Real cosy place," Kevin muttered. We were standing in groups of twos and threes, staring around with unease. "Seems like the perfect hang-out for a fragment of Tartarus's evil power."

"What, did you expect us to find a thriving oil town?" I muttered back. The son of Ares just rolled his eyes.

Alice, Olivia and Percy were near us. I glanced at the daughter of Apollo, and raised an eyebrow. "So? This place seem familiar?"

She nodded. "Oh, yeah, it's familiar. I'd have trouble forgetting it, even if I live as long as Helios. There's a lot of ghost towns, but there's only one Ghost Town."

I glanced sidelong at Kevin, who wore a controlled expression. He always found Alice's melodramatic tendencies amusing.

"So where are we going?" Percy asked, casting around edgily, waiting for some threat to jump out from the shadows. He wasn't the only one. Most of the half-bloods were casually resting their hands on their weapons, and Kevin had his sword partly drawn. Even I was focussed, a flicker away from engaging my pure sight.

"Down there," Alice pointed at the dull storefront, where the sweeping brush was. "We'll find him in that store."

"Okay," Annabeth joined us, along with Clarisse and Bradley. "Alice, you take the lead. Eight of us will go inside and talk to Jack, the other eight will stay out here on guard."

In the town's thick silence, Annabeth didn't even need to raise her voice to make her orders heard. We all nodded in agreement. Alice squared her shoulders, but refrained from touching her sword, as she led us down the street.

The sun had nearly set, and though I could feel the residual heat from the scorching day, the temperature was dropping as we made our way to Jack Mills's door. The silence was eerie. I could hear every squeak, clink and rustle of my friends' equipment. For a tiny, crazy moment, I felt like I really _was_ in a western, heading for a confrontation with the menacing bandits.

There was something deeper in the silence, too. It was a subtle, underlying sense of danger, even of threat, as though the very buildings we passed were rejecting our presence. It was easy to construe as a natural consequence of the town's emptiness, but my intuition told me it was another thing entirely, a climate of dark emotion that was too pervasive to be seen.

A burly figure emerged from the dusty shop, and stepped out into the road. He stood, staring, as though we were but a new phantasm come to haunt the town.

"Alice?" he asked, his deep voice a low surprise in the silence. "It can't be. Is that really you?"

The daughter of Apollo was a few steps ahead of us, and when she stopped, we came to a halt as well. We took our first look at Jack Mills, keeper of the piece of darkness.

Like most children of Hephaestus, he was imposing, tall and broad, clearly strong enough to bend an iron bar in two. A lit cigar was clenched between his teeth, which I found oddly reassuring because I've never met a monster who smoked. His hair was rough, tangled, and the colour of ashes, the same as his ragged beard, which was streaked with silver. His face was tough, leathery, and hard to read. His eyes were like dark jewels, bright but hard.

Still, there was a tenderness to the old demigod when he took the cigar from his lips, and met Alice's gaze. "What's going on here?" His voice was rough, but somehow reassuring. He laughed then, and it was a strange laugh, harsh with ill-humour but soft with good nature. "You have a lot more friends with you than last time. I suppose you learned from your mistakes."

I couldn't see Alice's face, but there was amusement in her voice. "And yet you look exactly the same, Jack." She was silent for a moment, then, "It's good to see you."

She crossed the distance between them, and offered Jack her hand.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner." Alice spoke quietly, but in the quiet of these nameless streets, it didn't matter much. "But so much has happened."

Jack looked down on her with curiosity, geniality, and a little suspicion. "That doesn't matter. I'm well used to being alone. But why now? And why bring so many half-bloods with you?"

He glanced up at us briefly, and I caught a flash of anger in his eyes. The good feeling he had for Alice did not extend to the rest of us, it seemed. In that second, I had the feeling that if it weren't for her, he would have already gone for his shotgun.

"Have you heard about Tartarus?" Alice asked, in a cautious voice.

"I have," Jack nodded, raising one bushy eyebrow. "But I have not been touched by him or his battles. Only my usual enemy bothers me. But tell me, what on earth or in hell have I to do with the gods' latest problem?"

The derision when he said _gods_ was sharp. I began to understand his barely-hidden anger, and Alice's caution. I glanced at Kevin, checking if he was following the same train of thought. He looked back at me, and nodded.

"You, in particular, have nothing at all to do with it," Alice replied. Her tone was getting even more cautious, as though talking a man down off a ledge. "But you have something that is important to Tartarus and to the gods. An artefact, which you probably don't even know to be an ancient item of power." She took a breath, holding up remarkably well under Jack's thunderous gaze. "My friends and I, well… we've been sent to retrieve it."

The silence that followed her words was so complete, I could hear Kevin and Olivia breathing on either side of me. Jack was motionless, staring down at Alice in angry disbelief, though he said nothing. We saw only our friend's back, but I felt her trepidation as though it were my own.

The moment dragged. Finally, Jack turned his head to one side, and sighed.

"Alice," he murmured, sounding disappointed. He shook his head. "You, of all people, know that I would never do anything to help the gods. They took the only thing that ever mattered away from me. You know this. Why do you ask me to do something that is _never_ going to happen?"

He looked back at her, eyebrows raised. Right then, I was glad not to be the one standing in front of him. I would have been running for the desert by now.

"Perhaps," Alice replied, somehow keeping her voice steady, "you could do it for me."

Jack laughed, more genuinely than before. He stepped back, and clapped his hands together, breaking the tension. "Oh, you're a sharp one. Children of Apollo are rarely so keen." He paused, glancing at us, then said, "Very well. You and some of your friends can come in to discuss it. But I promise you nothing, understand?"

He turned, and walked back into the shop, drawing a final puff from the cigar as he went.

Alice glanced around at us, her eyebrows raised. "Not a bad start, right?"

"Excellent!" Annabeth declared unconvincingly. The other half-bloods didn't even waste breath sounding enthusiastic.

"At least he didn't shoot us," I muttered. Without another word, we followed Alice to the door of Jack's shop. The other half of the group stayed outside, spreading around the street as we went in.

At first glance, we appeared to be entering a typically boring mortal hardware store. Shelves bearing tools and implements lined the walls. Mysterious metal objects, which could have been surgical tools for all I knew, hung from the ceiling. The cash register sat on a low wooden wall that ran the width of the room, broken only by a lifting countertop at one end.

All in all, it was a mundane place, same as millions others on the continent. At the back of the shop, however, Jack stood at an open door. I couldn't see what was beyond, but an intriguing glint of red light reflected off his dark hair, a visual invitation.

"Come," he beckoned, without looking around. "This way."

Moving in single file, we followed Alice to the back, and hence into the inner room.

We found ourselves in a sitting room far larger than architectural logic would suggest possible. Carpeted with deep Persian rugs, and lit by a large, crackling fire that took up most of the right wall, Jack's living room was at least one-half bigger than the shop. It was rectangular in shape, with the fireplace and bookshelves on one long wall, and two couches along the other. Four snug armchairs were by the fire, two on either side. At the other end of the room, there were two shut doors, with a tool rack standing against the wall between them.

"Make yourself comfortable," Jack said to Alice, as he walked to the armchairs. He glanced at us, and then back at her.

"The others can sit there." He jerked his thumb at the two old couches, as he lowered himself into the rather newer and plusher armchair.

Alice cast us a quelling look, no doubt to dissuade us from arguing with Jack's curmudgeonliness. We all complied, though I could sense the demigods' irritation as we planted ourselves on the couches like unwanted vagrants, and Alice sat opposite the son of Hephaestus, pride of place. Half-bloods are too used to handing out orders to enjoy taking them, and Jack's tone wasn't exactly softening them up. I glanced at Kevin and Olivia on my right, and Percy, Clarisse and Annabeth on my left, and wondered how long it would be before the demigods lost patience with their self-estranged fellow.

"This should go well," Kevin muttered darkly to me.

"Well, at least we're all warm," I murmured, drawing in reply a suppressed snort of derision.

Jack and Alice faced each other. We saw only their shadowy profiles, with the fire on their other side. I got my first look at Jack's aura. It was monochrome, made up of whites, greys and blacks, which swirled around and into each other, as though caught up in some indecipherable conflict.

"So," he said, sitting back, folding his hands over his stomach, an oddly genial gesture. "Tell me more of this ancient artefact. I didn't know I was in possession of something so valuable. Probably just as well for you. I would have sold it if I had."

He glanced, out of the corner of his eye, at us. The older demigods on my left were already getting restless, their auras flickering like the fire, but my friends and I were still, watching.

"It's not that kind of artefact," Alice replied. She leaned forward slightly, though seemed relaxed. The fire sparked, fresh wood cracking with small, harsh noises. "It's only valuable to people who can use it, and hardly anyone even knows about it. We were only told about it yesterday."

"That's how the gods do things," Jack said, more to himself than us. "Tell people things only when they need them to know." He paused, and brushed his beard. "I sound bitter, don't I. Old and bitter, right?"

I glanced at Kevin, who blew his cheeks out, his way of stopping himself from laughing. Percy coughed pointedly.

Jack shook his head. "I _am_ bitter. More than ever before. I'm sorry, Alice, I've changed since we last met. Time was never kind to me, but things have been really bad the last year or two."

"I see the town is a lot quieter," Alice replied. "It doesn't look like there's anyone left, apart from someone in the bar across the street."

"There's no-one in there," he said, giving a derisive snort that was a louder version of Kevin's. "At least, no-one _human_."

He paused, letting that one hang in the air, whether on purpose or not, I couldn't tell. I glanced to my left. Annabeth was sitting very, very still, always an unnerving thing, and Clarisse and Percy were both tapping their feet or drumming their fingers.

"You stopped Rhea, I know," Jack went on. "I get some information from passing spirits, and I can sometimes tune in to Olympus TV. That's how I heard about Tartarus's whole world-domination thing."

He sighed, and looked into the fire. "Things changed when I heard that news. It was about this time last year, and that was when Dolos came back."

Several of us, including me, exhaled sharply. Annabeth couldn't restrain herself. "Dolos was _here_?"

Jack's gaze flickered over to her.

"Daughter of Athena, right?"

"Yes," Annabeth replied, only slightly surprised. "Annabeth Chase, Athena counsellor."

"Yes." He looked back at the fire. "The Athena ones are always the first to ask the annoying questions. Dolos was here. I don't know why. As you know, he first appeared around the time the Flame of Olympus was stolen. He left when you arrived, Alice, but he came back.

"He took up residence in the bar across the way, the one you mentioned. At first I didn't think he was a threat, apart from his abysmal beer-brewing skills. For a while I believed he was just hiding out, waiting for the aftermath of the Flame thing to die down. But then, in late October, he started using his powers. His filthy aura of misery spread through the whole town. I'm too strong-willed to be affected by something like that, always have been, but the rest of the town's residents were all mortal, and most of them were old. They couldn't cope.

"When the winter got bad in late December, Dolos vanished. He returned a few nights later, and he was darker than ever. That atmosphere of misery he'd been brewing turned into something nightmarish two nights after the solstice. Three townspeople killed themselves the night after that."

He paused, taking a breath. We were all frozen, staring at him in silent horror. Alice was leaning forward, her calm expression hiding the disturbed emotions that I could see in her aura. The son of Hephaestus's aura was darker now, the darks seemingly gaining an advantage over the whites and greys.

"Two more the next night." Jack's voice dropped to a murmur. "Four the night after that. I couldn't do anything. I set out a few times to banish him, but he was nowhere. He was a ghost, around us all the time but impossible to fight. I couldn't confront him. You can't confront the goddamn air. Finally, after the fifteenth death, I gathered everyone out in the street and told them they needed to leave. It took some work to break through their confusion and depression, but eventually I managed to get them away. Only I stayed."

"Why didn't you leave, too?" Alice asked, in a hushed, funereal tone.

"This is the only home I have left," Jack said, looking at her. "No spirit or demon or anything else is going to drive _me_ out."

He stared at her, and probably it was the angle of the firelight, or my tense imagination, but in that second I thought I saw a glint of real madness in his eyes. Not determination, not anger, not even sorrow, but real, infernal madness.

Then he sighed, folded his arms and looked away. That impression faded as fast as it had come, and I dismissed it as a trick of the flickering light.

"So that's my story for the last year. What's yours?"

Alice and the other half-bloods started giving Jack an overview of the war with Tartarus. As each demigod spoke for the first time, he gave them a brief glance and immediately named their godly parent. I stayed quiet, waiting for a moment when I could make a decent contribution.

"These pieces of darkness are Tartarus's power made manifest," Alice explained, finally arriving at the point. "One is in the gods' possession, another is lost, and the third is here, in your keeping."

Jack grunted. "Little thing, black, like a volcanic stone, looks like glass?"

We'd all heard Chiron's briefing, but we looked at Annabeth for confirmation. She nodded.

"Right," Jack nodded too. "I know what you're talking about. I have it upstairs."

"Well, that's great," Alice said, visibly relaxing. "We need to retrieve it, so the gods can put it beyond Tartarus's reach. It's essential, not just for the safety of the gods, but for western civilisation itself."

"I don't see what civilisation has to do with it," Jack snorted again. "I doubt some half-forgotten god from the bottom of the planet's darkest pit can do much harm to you humans."

Annabeth couldn't restrain herself. "Tartarus is not a faded being like most of the other primordials. He's a real, powerful threat, and he's been getting stronger for years. If he regains even _one_ of the pieces of darkness, he'll be able to overpower most of the Olympians, and challenge the rest."

"That's right," Alice said, looking at the son of Hephaestus hopefully. "Jack, this is really important. I wouldn't have come here if it wasn't. If you don't let us take this thing back, Tartarus will get it, sooner or later, and then he'll be strong enough to sweep away the gods and destroy Olympus. We _can't_ let that happen. Even you can understand that."

Though she spoke quietly, her words and Annabeth's seemed to ring in the air for a moment after they stopped talking. Jack eyed her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. The conflict in his aura was worsening, the whites, greys and black crashing into each other, a psychic ocean at war with itself.

"No," Jack said finally. He shifted in his seat, straightening. "You don't know me, Alice, and I can't expect you to. The consequences don't matter, and neither does whatever terrible fate might hang in the balance. There is nothing on this earth that can convince me to do anything for the gods, nothing at all."

"But it's not for the gods," I said. "It's for us."

Jack blinked, as though hearing a voice come out of the fireplace. He looked at me, and frowned, his confidence slipping for the first time.

"What are you?" he murmured, tilting his head. "You're not the son of any god I know, nor the son of a spirit."

"I'm not a half-blood," I replied. "I'm a mortal."

Jack's eyebrows shot up towards his scraggy hair. "A mortal? Here among the mighty children of the almighty gods? Interesting. Perhaps things _have_ changed."

He paused, stroking his beard, his gaze flickering from face to face. He leaned forwards, like a poker player about to reveal his winning hand, and said to me, "You make a good point, my friend, but answer me this: what reason is there for me to give the gods my piece of darkness, when it is incredibly unlikely, _impossible_ , that Tartarus will ever discover that it is _here_?"

I'd been feeling a creeping sense of dread for the last few minutes, but I'd assumed it was just my nerves and Jack's bad attitude. Now, though, my instincts screamed at me.

And as though on some kind of morbid cue, Jake Wilson's voice rang through the air around us, as though he was the continuity announcer for the apocalypse.

"Well, hello there, fellow half-bloods. Sorry to disturb you, Alice, Jack, just thought I'd drop in on your reunion. Looking forward to seeing you together again. Don't let this interrupt your chat, but, ah, I've got an army of hungry monsters out here, it's getting late, and if you don't send someone out with the piece of darkness in the next two minutes I'm going to let them eat your friends for dinner."


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirteen**

* * *

 _Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long._

 _And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again._

–Stephen King, 'The Stand'

* * *

Everyone reacted, yet despite being the only one without demigod reflexes, I made it outside first.

Jake, my good enemy, stood in the middle of the road. A crowd of fifty or sixty monsters were behind him, spread up and down the opposite side of the street. Four dracaena stood midway between me and Jake, each holding a sword to a demigod's neck. The other five half-bloods who'd been left on guard stood around the street, their weapons drawn.

I scanned the faces of the four captive demigods: Bradley, Leo, Piper and Anna. They were motionless, lest a slightest movement push them into their captor's blade. The others were frozen, afraid to act.

"Ah, Cyrus," Jake said, meeting my eyes and smiling. "I heard you came back to camp, but I didn't know if it was just another piece of the gods' propaganda. What made you rejoin your doomed friends?"

I paused, for a second struck by a sense of excessive recognition, as though I was meeting a long-lost friend. It wasn't the first time I'd felt something like that when I saw Jake, but now it was stronger than ever. It faded as quick as it came, but for an instant it seemed that Jake was closer to me than anyone else on earth, that he was in some arcane way my only peer.

But that was crazy.

"A sense of obligation," I said. "I grew a conscience. You should try it sometime."

He shook his head, looking amused. "Maybe if the gods get one first, I'll try. How's the family?"

"What do you want, Wilson?" Percy shouted, storming past me, but stopping short of stepping onto the road when he saw the captive half-bloods. Everyone streamed outside, but as I glanced around, I realised that Olivia and Jack hadn't emerged.

"Spare me the theatrics, son of Poseidon," Jake said, folding his arms. His sword hung loosely at his belt. I braced my mental defences, took a cautious look at his aura, and was still unnerved. It had changed since the solstice, become even stronger, darker and more intense. His eyes, too, looked different, and the vague sense of danger he'd always exuded was now palpable. "I'm here for the piece of darkness. Give it to me now, and you and your friends can go home. I'll leave Jack in peace, too, though we have an old score to settle."

Annabeth, behind me, shifted as if to move forward, but a voice further back said, "Wait. Let me pass."

I glanced over my shoulder. Alice stood in the door of the shop, her gaze harder than I'd ever seen it. Annabeth started to say something, no doubt to argue, but Percy, next to me, said, "Alright. You're in charge, Alice."

We let the daughter of Apollo through. She stepped onto the road, her head high, and faced Jake. The two metres between her and the monsters seemed an impossibly fragile buffer. The son of Erebus's expression didn't change, but I saw a ripple of agitation in his aura, its usual smooth flow disturbed by tension.

I remembered the things Nico and Alice had told me about the trip to save the Flame of Olympus. These two were bound together by that story, a story that included a journey through the town in which we stood. And as I watched them face each other, gunslingers using emotions instead of bullets, I could see that their tale wasn't yet done.

Alice stayed silent, holding Jake's gaze, daring him to flinch away. The last time they were in this place, it was as friends and comrades. Now, they faced each other as foes, as betrayer and betrayed.

"How did you find us?" she asked.

Some of Jake's bravado had gone out of him. "I have a lot of people watching a lot of things." He paused, and when Alice continued to stare at him, he added, almost hurriedly, "I've been watching about fifty possible locations for this piece of darkness. As soon as you and your friends arrived, my friend in the tavern told me."

So _this_ was why he hadn't been at the battle in Los Angeles. I _knew_ he'd working on something, waiting for his moment to wreak the optimum amount of havoc. It was typical for him that he'd been concentrating on the big prize while we'd been distracted by the smaller battles.

"Dolos was your lookout?" Alice asked coldly. Her hands were loose at her sides, same as Jake's.

He nodded. "He was working for Rhea when this began, but now he answers only to me."

Alice was still for a moment. Everyone was quiet, watching her. Even the monsters were eager to see what she'd do next, staring with riveted beastly interest.

"Dolos was our enemy," she said. "You remember that, right?"

"Sure he was," Jake said, his airiness unconvincing, as his aura snapped around him like a weathervane in a tornado. "Well, he was _your_ enemy. Just like Phaethon was your enemy, until you _saved_ him, until you played the _hero_."

"I could have saved _you_ ," Alice said abruptly, shifting as though to walk forward. "If you had let me. If you'd gotten over your pride."

Jake's expression hardened. "Who said _I_ needed saving?" His fists clenched. "Do I _look_ like I need to be rescued?" He spread his arms wide, his voice rising. " _I_ am the one in control here. I am the one who will reclaim the piece of darkness and bring about the downfall of the gods, and you think I need _saving_?"

I couldn't help thinking that he had a fair point there, although admittedly the way his voice was rising to a manic screech didn't help his argument much.

I took another look at their auras. Alice's was quivering with tension, and I could feel her anger and pity at war with each other, cancelling out and forming a buzzing current of emotion. Jake's aura was out of control, rent by pitch-black waves of anger that were undercut by pale flickers of light which suggested shock, even fear.

(I noticed, too, that Jake's emotions were coming through to me a lot more clearly than Alice's, like the difference between long-wave and FM radio. It was like the excessive recognition, only more stable.)

"You don't understand, Jake. You don't need to be saved from some great danger," Alice said sadly, "You need to be saved from _yourself_. You always did, but you would never accept any help."

Suddenly his sword was in his hand. "I don't need any _help_ ," he shouted, his eyes burning. "I am the harbinger of the darkness. I will destroy the gods and sweep away their antiquated world. I am the son of Erebus, and nothing - _nothing_ \- can stop me."

I stared at him in disbelief that was shared by both demigods and monsters. I'd never seen him lose control like this. It was unbelievable. I looked at Alice, in time to see a peculiar look of satisfaction pass across her face. Then I understood. She knew him better than most, probably as well as anyone since his mother. She knew his strengths, but even more she knew his weaknesses, and her words were punching hole after hole in his armour of grandeur and confidence.

But what was the point? Our friends were still on their knees, held by the dracaena. Jake hadn't conveniently destroyed his troops in a fit of fury. Alice was just—

Delaying him.

I glanced around me. Olivia and Jack still hadn't come out, and now I remembered that Alice had been the last to emerge from the shop.

"And what about Nico?" she went on, anger starting to show in her voice for the first time. Her right hand clenched. "What about Jane? Are they in control? Do _they_ need to be saved?"

Jake made a dismissive gesture with his right hand, which happened to be the hand holding his sword. He neatly decapitated an unfortunate telkhine. "Nico is a fool," he muttered. "Tartarus bound his mind and spirit, yet still the son of Hades struggles."

A chill went down my spine, so cold it felt like my skin was freezing. Percy and Annabeth both took tottering steps forward.

"What?" Alice was off-balance for the first time, but the son of Erebus didn't seem to notice.

"I require something from him," Jake said darkly, shaking his head, "but he is defying both my will and Tartarus's. Right now, he is, quite literally, tied up."

Percy glanced over his shoulder at me, and we exchanged glances full of meaning. Could it be? I was almost afraid to believe it, but this looked like my instinct was right: Nico was not beyond help.

"And as for Jane," Jake went on, his teasing grin reappearing as he regained composure. "Well, why don't you ask her yourself?"

He waved his left hand, and the group of telkhines at his shoulder parted down the middle.

Jane Welles, my old friend, was standing behind them.

Everything seemed to fade away as I stared at her. She'd grown in the last few months, her hair was longer now, and her aura was darker than I'd ever seen it. She wore a breastplate cast from Stygian iron, a new, longer sword wrought from the same material hung on her belt, and there were four black rings of power on her fingers, glinting with the faintest of shadowy auras.

"Hi, everyone," she said, raising her eyebrows. I searched her expression, looking for something I knew, some proof that the person I'd once known was still there. But her face was neutral, unreadable.

"Jane is my lieutenant," Jake said, glancing at her with obvious pride. "Some day, she may even be as powerful as me. She sees things clearly, Alice, not like you and your friends."

A violent ripple of red coursed through Alice's golden-brown aura, something I'd never seen before. She drew her sword so fast I didn't even see it happen. The son of Erebus was unfazed. He smiled, shifting his stance, ready to rush forward. Around him, the monsters shifted into offensive positions, teeth baring, claws extending. All of us on the porch drew our swords and daggers, but no-one dared to step forward, with the dracaena still holding our friends at the edge of death.

Total silence enveloped the street, as we stared each other down. Dusk had passed, and night had descended over us like a dark curtain falling on a stage. Only the dim streetlights illuminated us, not even half of them working. We stood there, in the town destroyed by misery, in a frozen moment, a mythological reinterpretation of a Mexican standoff.

And then, the sound of salvation.

Jack Mills's voice boomed out from a window two floors up.

"Demigods! _Now_!"

The absolute silence was rent apart by frenetic noise. Two of the dracaena holding our friends fell instantly as shotgun blasts coughed out; and a streak of green light shot down from above, exploding on impact with the remaining snake-women. The blast reduced the monsters to a billowing cloud of yellow dust, but left the half-bloods unharmed. The force of the explosion sent them tumbling towards us, and all this as Jake screamed, " _Attack_!"

" _Charge_!" Percy yelled.

The stalemate broken, we poured onto the road as the monsters surged forwards. We crashed into Jake's minions with such force that many of them were instantly vaporised. Chaos was suddenly all around me. I dodged and swerved, trying to keep Percy in sight so I wouldn't lose my bearings. More shots rang out, followed by the death-screeches of pairs of monsters; and more green blasts of power were raining down, blowing away several of our enemies at a time.

I ducked under the guard of a small Cyclops before it could crush me with its massive club, plunged my knife into his exposed armpit, and jerked away from the cloud of yellow dust a nanosecond before an empousa lunged out of it with a scream. I stumbled to the side, and found myself back-to-back with Kevin, a great place to be, because he was one hell of a monster-killer. Nothing got within six feet of him, the monsters all kept back by his long sword and longer reach. I huddled within that shelter for a second, glancing around.

The son of Hephaestus was leaning out of a window on the second floor of his building, wielding a long shotgun, He was firing and reloading with military speed and precision, while at the window next to him, Olivia was hurling down fistfuls of power that I recognised as empowered stones. In between throws, she saw me looking up, and gave a thumbs-up.

"Hang in there," she yelled, and then shouted something else, but with the noise of the battle I only caught the words _Jack's defences_.

" _Cyrus_!" Kevin yelled in alarm. I looked around in time to see a one-armed, wailing dracaena claw at my face. I dodged, avoiding her talons by about a millimetre, then slipped forward and finished her off with a jab.

Jake's forces were depleting fast as the demigods burned through them, fuelled by anger and determination, but I was sure that the son of Erebus wasn't done. I blocked a telkhine's attempt to behead me, and caught sight of him crossing blades with Percy. A jolt of hope went through me. If anyone could take down Wilson, it was the son of Poseidon.

I beheaded the telkhine with no small amount of vindictive satisfaction, and found myself in the middle of a large area clear of monsters. Already there was barely twenty of them left. Jake's dramatic army was looking a hell of a lot less dangerous than he'd made out.

Of course, the moment I thought that, everything changed.

Percy cried out as Jake threw a fistful of shadows into his face. The half-blood was thrown backwards, landing in a heap on the ground, his sword spinning away as the son of Erebus turned and tossed something to Jane, who'd been standing outside the door to the tavern all the time. She knelt down on the porch, starting to draw on her power.

Then, Jake clenched his left fist, his aura began to pulse and darken, and a chill of horror killed my optimism. I could _feel_ him preparing to tear us apart. I didn't know exactly what he was about to do, but I felt a bone-deep certainty that he meant to stop us ever getting back into the house.

I turned to shout to the others - in time to see Clarisse running past, towards Jake, her sword raised, her teeth bared in a determined snarl.

" _No_!" I yelled, pointlessly stretching a hand towards her. "He's going to use his powers! _Get back_!"

Clarisse's stride wavered, and she glanced back at me, just as Jake swung his arms in a wide gesture, releasing the dark power he'd gathered.

I'd expected a wave of darkness to blast at us like a tsunami, the sort of thing Jake had done many times before, but apparently he'd been working on his repertoire. Instead of a blunt missile of energy, his power shaped itself, forming into twelve dark humanoid figures which emerged from his aura and darted towards us, super-spectres wrought from Jake's own inhuman power. One of them slammed into Clarisse, but she managed to rebound off it and keep upright. The others, all of them over six foot tall, darted around the street, streaking at demigods, bowling them over before they could react.

"The _hell_?" Kevin cried, as one dashed towards us. It raised one long arm and lunged at us, moving too fast to even be seen clearly. Kevin and I moved together, and even with our combined strength we barely blocked the strike. The force of our defence and its attack were equal, and we were locked together for a moment, our weapons grinding against the thing's rock hard limb.

I got a glimpse of our attacker. Though it was shaped like a human, with two arms and legs and one head, it was otherwise featureless. It had no face, no aura, no armour, and it barely looked solid, despite the great force with which it was pushing against us.

In fact, it looked exactly like a shadow.

It shifted its weight, and shoved. We fell back, keeping in step with each other.

"What the Hades is this thing?" Kevin snapped, staring at the shadow as it stalked towards us, like a predator, but one too nightmarish to be created by nature.

"I don't know. New invention?" I muttered, ducking under the creature's guard as it lunged again. I sliced it across the knee, and Kevin plunged his sword into its chest. The thing reeled backwards, letting out a creepy hissing noise, like gas leaking from a tank. Our attacks had cut deep gashes, so deep we could see right _through_ it, like it was made of paper.

Around us, Jake's new friends and the remaining monsters were bearing down on the demigods. The fighting was fragmented, broken into twos and threes around the street. Jack had disappeared from his window. Olivia was still throwing down her streaks of green power, but more slowly. She had to be running out of stones or energy by now. Jane was on her knees by the tavern door. She'd drawn a circle on the wooden porch with black chalk, and was murmuring to herself, her dark aura trembling.

The shadow thing came at us again. Its sheer strength made no sense. Shadow doesn't have any mass, and yet this thing was hitting harder than a boxing heavyweight. It swung one shapeless fist, clipped me in the shoulder and knocked me to the ground. I lay still for a second, braced to roll away from another attack, but Kevin jumped over me and swung his sword in a wide arc, slicing the shadow's left arm off at the shoulder.

I got back on my feet as the creature hunched over, letting out that hissing again, more loudly this time. Kevin edged towards it, sword raised, ready to attack or defend. I glanced up the street. The half-bloods were regaining control, but only just. Jake's creatures were dangerous, but they were dumb, just giant hammers without the brains needed to overcome the wily demigods. Jane was still occupied with whatever working of power she was performing. No-one else had noticed her, and with another foreboding chill, I knew I had to stop her.

Kevin reengaged the shadow, building up to finishing the thing off. He had it under control, and I started towards Jane, before she could unleash some new problem on us.

But I was too late.

I wasn't even two metres away from the daughter of Nyx when she dropped whatever Jake had given her into the chalk circle. Instantly, a roaring sound filled the air, and a geyser of shadow shot up from the circle, billowing upwards as though bringing hell itself up from the pit. Jane edged away from it as the blast of power intensified, sending drips and splashes of dark energy flying through the air like malevolent drops of water.

Jake, standing watchful at one side of the battle, reached out one hand towards the geyser, and made a subtle gesture, too fast to follow. A second later, disembodied battle cries filled the air, twisted voices made all the more disturbing by their lack of owners. They rang out everywhere, a chorus of the furious, growing louder, louder— and then monsters began to pour out from the torrent of power, like nightmares coming through an open window.

Ten, twenty, thirty, they came out in seconds, replacing all the creatures we'd just destroyed. As they came, the geyser of power dwindled, losing strength gradually. When the sixtieth or seventieth monster emerged, it extinguished, the dark power vanishing back into the earth as though it had never even been there. The flow of monsters finally stopped, as the new creatures assembled around Jake, staring at us with disturbing eagerness.

All of that took less than a minute.

I glanced at my friends, taking stock, trying not to panic but not finding much reason not to. On the bright side, all of Jake's shadow creatures and original monsters were now nothing more than dust and unpleasant memories. The bad news was that everyone was exhausted, and three demigods, including Percy, were on the ground, unconscious or injured. The new monsters were ready now, teeth and claws bared. Jake stepped back into the middle of the street, his blade drawn, while Jane stepped down to join him, still yet to draw her sword.

"We're so screwed," Kevin, beside me again, breathed.

Once more, there was a moment of stillness. We had nowhere to go. Olivia, our only hope of assistance, was gone from the window above. Alice stood a couple of yards in front of me, and she glanced over her shoulder at us. Determination gave her eyes a hard glint, a look shared by the other half-bloods. I got the message. Perhaps we were doomed, but we couldn't run. All we could do was face this together, and let the Fates decide the rest.

Jake raised his sword. We closed ranks as best we could, which basically meant moving closer to whoever you were already near. Alice stepped back to be alongside Kevin and me, and two minor god kids appeared from behind to join us.

"Well then," Jake called to us. "Looks like this is the end of the dance."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Fourteen**

* * *

 _"_ _I don't want to threaten you in your own home," Skulduggery said, "so if you'd like to step outside, I can threaten you there."_

–Derek Landy, 'Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil'

* * *

We were done.

There was nowhere to go. We were too scattered around the street to form a viable defence. Olivia hadn't emerged from the house, and even if we retreated in there we'd be overrun before we could travel back to camp.

Jake drew breath to give the order, and I tightened my grip on my dagger. If we were going down, I wanted to at least _try_ to take the son of Erebus with me. Maybe then the half-bloods back at camp would have a chance.

And then, a millisecond before he let his minions tear us apart, a deep rumbling filled the air, like a storm, but it was too mechanical—

" _Demigods_!" Jack appeared at the door of his shop, his booming voice frantic. "Get inside! _Now_!"

We all stared over at him. Alice shouted back, "They'll overrun us just as easily in there, Jack!"

" _No_!" he yelled. "I'm bringing up my defensive wall, you just need to get in before it seals off the door. Come _on_."

He stepped back, and as he did, we saw it - an honest-to-gods circular _wall_ of bronze rising up from the ground around Jack's building, a rolling shutter in reverse.

" _Go_!" Alice shouted, the moment she saw it. "Inside, everyone!"

" _No_!" Jake yelled, livid, as we bolted for safety, his victory turning to smoke faster than he could blink. "Stop them!"

The monsters surged forward, but most of the demigods were ahead, throwing themselves toward Jack's front door. Those nearest to the shop were inside within seconds.

"Get the wounded!" Alice ordered. Down the street, Annabeth was dragging Percy to his feet, while Clarisse kept some raging Laistrygonians away from them. A few more half-bloods disappeared inside.

Kevin and I went to Leo, who was face-down on the road outside the tavern. The monsters were dissolving into chaos, their fury at our escape putting them beyond even Jake's control. We plunged through the madness, somehow reaching Leo unscathed. Kevin snatched the scrawny son of Hephaestus up into a fireman's carry, while Alice and the minor god kids were gathering up the other fallen half-bloods. Jack's defensive wall was rising faster now, already the bottom half of the door was blocked by it. We had seconds before it would be too high to get over.

Kevin and I ran the few yards across the street, me barely keeping the monsters off us. A telkhine came within inches of biting my arm off, but we were just fast enough, and then we reached the door. Kevin threw Leo inside like an oversized puppet, swung himself over the still-rising barrier, and with a clumsy hop I tumbled after him. A second later, Alice dived in, landing on top of me as Jack slammed the door.

"Everyone here?" he asked, glancing around the room. The light from the bare bulb overhead was too faint to make out who was here, but a few voices, to me disembodied as I was still stuck under Alice, confirmed we were all inside. Jack nodded, and pulled a lever with a _clunk._

That rumbling sound became more high-pitched, presumably as Jack pushed his wall-raising machine to the limit. I finally got to my feet, in time to see the wall of celestial bronze rise past the ground floor windows, even as the monsters threw themselves at the barrier. The machine ground on, presumably raising the barrier still higher, though now I could see nothing through the window but bronze, its movement barely noticeable in the dimness.

Alice was sitting on the floor, exhausted, and Annabeth was already taking charge.

"Move the wounded into the back room," she instructed, as she dragged Percy into Jack's sitting room. The son of Poseidon was unconscious now, the brief spate of wakefulness that had gotten him inside over; but he didn't have any serious wounds, and a glance at his aura told me there was no psychic trauma. "Anyone who's injured should be administered nectar and ambrosia."

Six or seven half-bloods were injured, in fact, though luckily no-one seemed seriously hurt. Alice, as our only available Apollo demigod, dragged herself onto her feet and started sorting through everyone. There was nothing for me to do except get in the way, so I edged over to the wall, and found myself beside Jack, who was watching the half-bloods' triage with interest.

I was exhausted, same as everyone else, but I found the energy to be curious. "What the hell was that?" I waved my hand at the window. A second after I spoke, the noise of the machine cut out, with almost alarming abruptness, like a car engine dying, but Jack didn't react. He looked down at me. I'm not short, but he was about a foot taller than me, and I made a mental note to avoid getting into an argument with the guy.

"That was my security system," he said, somewhat unhelpfully. Up close to him for the first time, I saw that his eyes were a deep brown; and when it wasn't clouded by rumbling anger, his gaze was warm, even reassuring. "It took ten years to construct. A two-foot-thick wall of celestial bronze encircles the whole building. When it's fully extended, it's as tall as the building. This is only the second time I've had to raise it."

"And the whole thing sits in the ground normally?" I said, staring at him in astonishment. "It's like a retractable siege wall or something?"

Jack nodded. "That's exactly what it is. And now it's facing its first real siege."

I gaped. It was only around one building, but that was still one heck of a construction job. And how the hell had he even _assembled_ the wall? Or gotten enough bronze to build it so high?

"But what about shadow-travel?" I asked, going to the most obvious issue, given we were battling the lord and prince of shadows. "What's going to stop our friend and his meaner friends just shadow-travelling past your big, retractable wall?"

"He can't do that," Jack said coolly. He turned away, and pressed a few buttons on a panel by the lever he'd pulled earlier. "There's an empowered circle embedded within the bronze. No-one can travel in or out, except through the escape door."

"Wow," I blinked at him, barely aware of the demigods bustling around me. We'd really gotten lucky here. Sure, we'd backed ourselves into a corner where Jake and his mythological cronies could lay siege to us, but it was a heavily _armoured_ and _enchanted_ corner. "But that's a huge project. You couldn't have done that alone."

Jack went totally still, like the way Nico sometimes got. I could see only one side of his face, but I still saw his expression darkening, that burning anger returning to his gaze. Self-preservation has never been one of my defining traits, and in my confused excitement I went on, "You would have needed a child of Hecate or someone like that to set the thing up!"

The son of Hephaestus gave me a flat look, but coming from someone of his size and temperament, and coming _to_ someone as unwarlike as me, that was a few hairs short of a death threat. I stopped.

A long, awkward pause elapsed, during which we stood and stared around the room, like mismatched bodyguards. Most half-bloods were in the backroom now, many settled or settling into makeshift beds. I was plotting my route in to them when Jack sighed, and said, "My wife. She was a daughter of Hecate, and she helped me build this sanctuary, before…"

He stopped as abruptly as I had, and shook his head. I eyed him. Up close, I saw that his aura was more complex than any I'd ever seen, other than those of the gods. The different monochrome shades were in constant conflict, weaving and crashing into each other, never letting up. Jack breathed in heavily, and I understood that I'd stumbled straight into the reason why he hated the gods.

"What happened?" I breathed, afraid to ask but knowing it was necessary.

Jack shook his head (that seemed to be his favourite gesture) and started to walk away, but then Annabeth was in front of us, full of nervous intensity.

"Most people are asleep now," she reported, glancing between me and him. "No-one is severely wounded, but they need to recuperate. Since Alice is the only child of Apollo we've got, she's watching over them, and I'm temporarily in charge of the mission."

I nodded. Jack just gazed at her, anger still heavy on his brow. I was jealous: Annabeth was totally unfazed by his glowering. He could have been a disgruntled kitten for all the reaction she gave.

"Now, I need to know how secure this place is," she folded her arms, always a sign of impending interrogation. Outside, all seemed to be quiet, presumably as Jake plotted some dastardly way of getting in here. With the dimness of the lightbulb, there was a lot of shadows in the shop, and I glanced at them as though they were about to eat me, despite Jack's reassurances. "What kind of defences do you have?"

The son of Hephaestus had evidently used up his explanation quota for the day, because he just grunted, "No-one is getting in here," and started walking toward the backroom.

Annabeth let him pass, but she kept staring at him. "Your fate is tied to ours now. It's in your own interests to work with us."

Jack paused at the shop counter, and glanced back, his eyes unreadable in the gloom. "You tell her, Cyrus."

"Uh. Sure." I wasn't overly pleased with being his spokesman, but I figured anything I could do to improve his mood would help. I relayed to Annabeth what Jack had already told me. By the time I'd finished, she looked even more astonished than I'd been.

"But those kind of empowered circles have a limited power supply," she stared at Jack as though he'd said he'd invented the cure for death. "How long?"

"Long enough," he replied. "Finished?"

He turned away, but Annabeth stepped towards him.

"Can we see outside?" she asked, her tone more diplomatic. Presumably Jack's defensive setup had earned the strategically-obsessed daughter of Athena's respect. "We should know what Jake's doing out there."

Jack eyed her for a moment, and I could tell that the answer was yes, but he was weighing whether he wanted to bring his cooperation up to that level. He seemed to view everything he did for us as a personal favour to the gods.

"The more we know about the situation we're in, the sooner we can get out of here," I said, not sure where this negotiating skill was coming from.

Jack's gaze flicked over to me, a hint of amusement in his eyes. Then he looked back at Annabeth, and nodded.

"I have a surveillance room on the first floor. Come on. There's a screen on the wall outside, so we can talk to your friends as well, if you want."

He walked on, Annabeth and I following eagerly.

Most of the half-bloods were fast asleep on couches or the floor. It always amazed me how the food of the gods was effectively a sedative for a lot of demigods. Alice and Kevin sat in the armchairs, and Olivia on the floor between them, all three staring into the fire.

"We're going to look outside," Annabeth told them, as Jack walked to the doors at the back of the room. "Jack has a surveillance system, and a screen so we can talk to Jake."

"Oh." Kevin glanced at her, then me. "Well, let's have a look."

He got to his feet, as did Olivia. Alice didn't move.

"I'll stay here and keep watch over the dead, make sure they don't run away," she said, without looking up from the fire. I laughed, though no-one else seemed amused. I guess the concept of the living dead loses its humour after the millionth monster attack.

Jack unlocked the right-hand door, and we followed him through. I expected to find a staircase beyond the door, or perhaps a box room with a few computer screens set up.

What I did _not_ expect was a whole new corridor, with one door on either wall. The sheer length of the hall showed that the rooms beyond those doors were at least as big as the sitting room behind us. Olivia let out a gasp as the door shut behind us. Annabeth and Kevin stared around in confusion. "What the heck?" I said, just blinking.

Jack snorted. "Didn't expect that, did you? Control room is on the left. Follow me."

We trailed after him, too tired and bewildered to start asking questions. Architectural impossibilities like this were overwhelming to even Annabeth's logical faculties.

Jack produced another key, not from the key-ring but from his capacious tool-belt, and let us into the control room. It was the same as the sitting room in both size and shape. Stocked tool benches and cupboards stood along the narrow walls. A desk ran the length of the longer wall opposite the door, on top of which sat three massive computer monitors. Jack walked over to them as we looked around.

I'd expected Jack to have a really high-tech control centre, since he had such a sophisticated security system, but his setup was minimal. The desk was messy with ancient-looking keyboards and mice, at least half of which were broken. Tools were arranged in a rough order on the benches, but most of them looked like they hadn't been used in a long time. It was very utilitarian, nothing superfluous or even decorative, not even a carpet to cover the wooden floor. Illumination was provided by two more bare light bulbs, one of which flickered unenthusiastically every couple of minutes.

Jack glanced over his shoulder, and beckoned us to join him.

"I have cameras on this building, and across the road," he said. "They won't know that we're watching, but we can communicate through a screen on the defensive wall if you want, although I don't really see the point. Your friend Jake doesn't seem to understand the meaning of _hell no_."

Annabeth and I nodded. Olivia and Kevin, on Jack's other side, just watched. The son of Hephaestus hit the return key, and the screen flickered into life.

Two video feeds flickered on. The top half of the screen showed us an overhead view of the monsters, which were congregated in the middle of the street. Jake was pacing around, his aura jumping with fury. The bottom of the screen showed the same thing, except from ground level on the other side of the street. Jack tapped the keyboard again, and the overhead view filled the screen.

We watched, as Jake prowled up and down. The tension in his aura was worse than I'd ever seen it. Even with my defences up, I couldn't stop myself shuddering at the sheer darkness of his anger. Even the monsters looked scared. Their claws and talons were demurely retracted, their expressions hilariously compliant.

Jane stood outside the tavern, her arms folded, her expression unreadable. She was watching Jake, but alone among both us and the monsters, she didn't seem nervous, as though she knew his bad temper wouldn't touch her.

With a rush of anger and unease, I wondered just how close the two shadow demigods had become. Close enough that he trusted her to be his lieutenant in this crucial mission. Close enough that she understood his emotions and could treat his bubbling rage with equanimity. What had she done to earn that trust, to reach that level of familiarity? Had she descended even further into the darkness of her own anger than I'd imagined?

I stared at Jane, her image dim and grainy on the CCTV feed, and wished that I could reach out, pluck her from the train wreck of her rage-fuelled choices, and put her back among us. I _knew_ who she was. I knew she wasn't evil. The daughter of Nyx was reacting, making rash decisions. Surely it would only take the right word, at the right time, to banish the fog that shrouded her better self?

But, as I looked from her to Jake, I wondered if Jane had already received too much exciting new power to be able to walk away. And I knew, too, that just because I could forgive her betrayal didn't mean the rest of the camp would.

I shook myself, back into the moment, back into the crisis.

"We should talk to him," said the daughter of Athena, watching Jake as you would watch a wild lion that has wandered into your backyard.

Jack gave her a scornful glance. "You think he's going to _negotiate_?"

"No," she shook her head. "But it won't hurt to clarify the situation."

He raised his dark eyebrows, but shrugged, and typed something on the keyboard. There was a significant _beep._ A few seconds later, Jake froze mid-step, staring at something to the left of the camera. Even Jane looked taken aback, her composure dropping a couple notches. It was a few seconds before the son of Erebus regained his poise

"Jack!" he called, folding his hands behind his back. His voice sounded tinny through the computer's cheap speakers. "And Cyrus, and friends. I suppose you can see me."

"Clear as day," Jack grunted, folding his arms and looking all the more intimidating for it.

Jake stared up at us neutrally. Jane was uneasy.

"This is quite a setup you've got here, man," he went on. Jack tapped the keyboard, and the camera zoomed onto Jake. "Did you have all this gear the last time we came through?"

"Most of it," Jack replied, as though talking with a guy in a bar. "I made some upgrades when I heard about the trouble you've been causing. Funny. When you passed through this town you were one of the good guys. I risked my ass saving you and your friends, and it turned out that you were the thief all along."

"Yeah, well," Jake scowled. He hadn't truly regained his composure, but he was making a good pretence of it. "Not everything is the way it seems, right? Alright, let me make this clear to you all."

He walked a few paces down the street, the camera tracking his movement.

"I want that piece of darkness, and we aren't leaving until we get it." Jake came to a halt, and the good humour evaporated from his voice, leaving only the hard crystals of his anger.

"You know you can't get into my house," Jack countered. "So unless you have a nuclear bomb under that ridiculous leather jacket, you're going to be waiting a long time."

"I can't get at you _yet_ , sure," he nodded. "But lots of impossible things happen if they're given enough time. So you have two choices. You can give the artefact to me, or you can wait until your supplies run out and your empowered circle runs out of energy."

"That won't happen for a long, long time. How about I give the thing to the half-bloods here, and let it be their problem? It's not like I need some accursed artefact that belongs to a forgotten monster."

Jake laughed, but it was hollow, coursing with rage. Through those high-pitched speakers, it sounded weirdly mechanical. "Do that, if you like. It won't make any difference. It's not like they can get away from here with it, after all."

"Wait, _what_?" I said. I looked at Olivia in alarm. "Is that _true_?"

She gave me an awkward nod. "I won't be able to take us home with quanta transmission unless we're on the ley line."

"But the ley line is just _there_ ," Kevin waved his hand in a general direction.

"It is _there_ ," she confirmed, pointing in a specific direction. "And we're _here_. We're just off the highway, but we need to be _on_ it. The only way to do that is to be standing on the same spot where we arrived. That's where the ley line is accessible, nowhere else."

I stared at her in disbelief. I'd thought that this quanta transmission would be our ace in the hole, the one thing that Jake couldn't block, but now I was realising that it was a lot more limited than shadow travel. For the thousandth time, I wished Nico was with us. Things would be _so_ much easier.

And Jake knew it.

"And there's no way you'll be getting past us, guys," he said, with a gratuitously villainous shrug. "So you're stuck there, and we aren't leaving until I get that piece of darkness."

He stared up for a long moment, as we considered the revelation that things were a lot worse than we'd imagined. Kevin looked like he wanted to reach through the screen and strangle Jake. Olivia quite clearly wanted to jump off the top of the building. Annabeth's features were set in a determinedly neutral expression. I glanced at Jack.

We all knew that this depended on him. He could give up the piece of darkness to Jake, and there was nothing we could to stop him. Hell, we didn't even know where he kept the damn thing. If he hated the Olympians as much as he said, he'd be _happy_ to hand it over to someone like Jake. And even if he wasn't an anti-Olympian anarchist, he might just hand over the artefact to get some peace.

Jack drew breath. The four of us watched him out of the corner of our eyes, not daring to look at each other or him directly.

"I don't like the gods," he said. "They've done a lot to insult me."

Jake nodded like a salesman listening to a customer talk himself into buying an overpriced car. We stood stock-still, afraid of this angry demigod's instability, afraid of our lack of control.

"But I like traitorous scum like you even less," he added, his voice hardening. "At least the gods don't pretend to be something they're not. You? You're nothing but a mercenary, a traitor to everything, even yourself. No. Threaten me all you like. I'm keeping the piece of darkness, as you call it, and I'm going to wait here until you realise you can't win. You say I might as well give it to you now? I say you might as well leave _now_."

I just stared at him in amazed relief. Olivia looked like she wanted to hug him. Jake's reaction was not so positive.

"I see," he muttered, glancing around the street before looking back at us. "Well, that's fine. We'll stay here, too." He paused, his gaze flickering around, then added, "But, hell, I've got things to do. I'm not wasting my time trying to scare an old man. _Jane_!"

Jack tapped the keyboard, and the camera zoomed out. We watched as Jane stepped into the street, a fist clenched as she gathered some power.

"Yeah?"

"You take command here," he said, with an impish grin. "You get to be the cat waiting for the mouse to creep out of its hole. Can you handle that?"

Jane glanced at us. I searched her face for any signs of the playful, friendly person I'd known, but there was nothing except a hard mask. I felt like I was looking at a stranger, and that scared me, because I couldn't know what she was capable of.

"Sure," she said, all calmness and confidence. "I'll handle it."

"Great," Jake nodded. He gave us one last scornful glance, and this time I knew he was looking at me. "Let's see who gets bored first."

He flicked a wrist, the nighttime shadows surged toward him, and then he was gone. Before any of us could react, Annabeth reached out, and hit a key. The video feed cut off.

"Jack, you _have_ to give it to us," she said, turning to stare into his face. The room felt very quiet with the computer off. The presence of the monsters on the other side of the wall was a lot more unsettling when I couldn't see them. "We'll figure out a way to reach the ley line, but you _need_ to let us take it."

The son of Hephaestus didn't react for a long moment, just staring past Annabeth at the screen, as though it was still on. Finally, he met the daughter of Athena's imploring gaze.

"No," he said, his expression as unyielding as Jane's had been, his tone not much softer than when he'd spoken to Jake. "No-one is getting that thing. She told me to never let it go."

Without looking at us, he turned, and walked to the door.

"What do you mean?" I asked, turning. " _Who_ told you that?"

Jack didn't reply. He reached the door, and was swinging it open when Annabeth said, "How long can we last in here, anyway? Those monsters are immortal, but I don't believe your defences are. That empowered circle won't hold forever."

He stopped, and glanced back at us. He stood on the edge of the light bulbs' thin illumination,, and with his face in deep shadow, he looked more like an ancient rock cast in the shape of a man than a real human.

"We'll last as long as we have to," he said, his tone like a cliff face, hard with nothing to grab onto. "I - she and I - built this place to last. No-one's getting in." He paused, glowering at Annabeth, and repeated., "No-one."

Then he left the room, shutting the door with a determined _snap_.

"Okay, hold on. Empowered circle?" Olivia asked, looking between me and Annabeth. "What's that got to do with anything?"

We explained Jack's defences, in particular the part about the magic circle that kept out any intruders. Kevin was greatly impressed by this, but Olivia's expression passed from eager interest to grave concern.

"You're right," she frowned. "Those circles don't last a long time, even if they're designed by a master child of Hecate. They need a power source, a really good one."

I shared an edgy glance with Kevin, who asked, "Would you have any idea how long it could stay up?"

Olivia somehow nodded and shook her head in one gesture. It must have been magic. "Only if I get a look at the energy source, but I don't believe for a second that Jack will let us near it…"

"But you can give us a ballpark figure," Annabeth said, starting to pace the room. "What's the best we can expect, if Jack has a strong source?"

She tilted her head, thinking. We watched her intently, like it was one of those terrible game shows where they pause before announcing the final winner, except this time the announcement meant the difference between having a chance against the forces of darkness and not. No pressure, Hartnell.

"This is only an estimate," she said, glancing at each of us. "But a circle this size, under attack from a strong force of monsters, at this time of year? It would be incredible if it lasted more than a week."


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifteen**

* * *

 _Arthur Dent was irritated to be continually awakened by the sound of gunfire._

–Douglas Adams, 'So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish'

* * *

A stalemate has to be the most boring thing that can happen in any chess match.

I mean, to render any change impossible, and to be forced to end the game in a draw, after all the effort and emotion invested in it up to that point, seems like a real waste.

Still, at least stalemates don't work like that in real life. In the real world, things always have to change, it's just a question of how long you have to wait.

These and other thoughts revolved in my mind as I lay in a sleeping bag in Jack's control room. It felt strange to be resting while the armies of darkness lurked outside, but Annabeth had ordered us asleep with an implacability she must have swiped from Chiron.

"We'll begin proper negotiations tomorrow," she'd said, yawning as if for dramatic emphasis. "We need to sleep now."

"How do we know Jack won't just turn us over? How can we trust him?" Kevin asked, his tiredness making him more suspicious than usual.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Trust _me_. If Jack was going to give us up, he would have done it when we were still _outside_ his fortress."

Jack had provided sleeping bags for everyone, which my morbid imagination connected to the idea of body bags for everyone. Now we were all tucked up and snuggled down, physically if not mentally. One half-blood was awake in the front room, on watch, rotating every three hours. Only Kevin and I were in the control room. Everyone else really wanted to be near the door, even though they couldn't go through it.

Kevin was fast asleep, his snores just about ignorable. I lay there, sleep a wishful fantasy, as thoughts and questions about this insane situation dashed around my mind like a gang of deranged hamsters.

For one thing, I couldn't understand why Jack had felt the need to build a military-grade defence system around his house. He wasn't exactly living at the foot of Mount Tamalpais. The most mythologically significant event ever to kick up dust in this place was a few demigods getting into a bar fight with a rogue spirit and an escaped ghost. Sure, the rogue spirit had literally come back to haunt the town, but that didn't seem good enough reason to turn the house into a miniature Fort Knox.

I could think of only one answer. Jack and his presumably deceased wife had known enough about their piece of darkness to believe that, one day, someone might come looking for it.

I wondered about this mysterious daughter of Hecate, thanks to whom I could rest without worrying about Jake's minions tearing the building apart. Her story, and what she'd meant to Jack, had to be the key to securing the piece of darkness. How had the artefact ended up here? And how had Jack been so injured by the gods? These were the questions that could unlock our stalemate.

Another question that bothered me: where was Jake now? I didn't like that he'd left. It made me twitchy, like being in the jungle and having no idea what the killer tiger is up to. The only possible reason that he wasn't waiting to claim the piece of darkness and the glory with it was that he was planning something else. Something even bigger.

That scared me.

I sighed, and made a ineffectual attempt to settle into sleep. I squirmed around the sleeping bag for a minute or two, trying to ignore the ideas pounding on the door of my mental office. All my efforts were futile, and I surrendered, lying still and letting in the mob.

First in the door was the question that followed me around like an overworked shadow. What the hell was my role in this insanity? Sure, I accepted that I was Lightbringer. Now what? _When_ was I going to make this great difference?

In truth, this whole Lightbringer/unhindered sight/defier of the shadows deal was still awfully vague. I'd assumed, rather narcissistically, that a hugely dramatic moment would arrive and I would heroically avert the apocalypse at great personal cost. Now, I was beginning to think this was extremely unlikely. That was the stuff people like _Percy_ did, not me. I was a mortal, not a sword-swinging monster-slaying warrior who inspired ballads and legends. My contribution would surely be much quieter, something more suited to my abilities.

Something, for example, like being the guy who, at a crucial moment, convinced an intransigent demigod to overcome his pride.

I knew this wasn't just my optimistic imagination, mainly because I don't _have_ an optimistic imagination. I'd already noticed that Jack was more open with me than the half-bloods. Perhaps he felt that I was more neutral, less the gods' stooge, because of my mortality. Or maybe he saw that we shared a common ground of distrust and dislike towards most of the human race. Hell, he could just think that I was a nice guy.

Whatever the reason, I knew that I had the faint beginnings of a rapport with Jack, and that was what we needed if we were ever going to talk him around. This, along with his fondness for Alice, could be just enough to break down his (bronze?) wall of stubbornness.

My mind finally calmed, now that I'd put these things together. I relaxed, feeling sleepy for the first time. Kevin's snores beside me seemed more distant. I could even begin to forget about the evil monsters surrounding the building.

And as my distractions faded away, I was unable to avoid the thoughts I'd been suppressing since the siege had started. Clearing my mind of all other issues made it impossible to ignore the only problem that really unnerved me.

I was going to have to fight Jane.

This possibility had occurred to me once or twice since she'd left camp, but I'd never acknowledged its likelihood. I'd always hoped, with uncharacteristic optimism, that I'd never face her in battle, that she was an unimportant aspect of Jake's war machine, always far from the front line.

But that was a ridiculous, impossible belief. Demigods with shadow abilities were some of the most dangerous people on the earth, and Jane, the daughter of the ancient embodiment of _night_ , was no exception. I'd seen a fragment of Nyx's power, and that alone had nearly driven my friends and me into raving madness. Jane's single limitation was that her power was grounded out by the daylight, but a master of the darkness like Jake would surely know ways around that. If Nico wasn't being an obedient mind-slave (this thought at least gave me some satisfaction), it made sense for Jane to be the son of Erebus's lieutenant.

She was on the front line, and that was where she would stay, so long as she fought for Jake. And the longer _I_ fought on the front line, the more likely it became that I would have to confront my friend.

My eyes were wide open, any hope of sleep forgotten. Even after all this time, I just couldn't accept the idea of Jane as my enemy. It was like imagining Jake as a dear cousin. She wasn't my best friend from camp, but she was the friend I'd shared the most with. I remembered when we first met so clearly, because we'd arrived at camp on the same day.

 _"_ _Then who is your godly parent?" Chiron replied, unfazed by her great heights of knowledge._

 _"_ _Nyx!" Jane Welles declared. "The goddess of the night."_

 _Well, that certainly explained her aura._

 _"_ _Very well," the centaur said. "We won't need to show you the orientation film, then. This is Cyrus," he gestured at me, "I was about to walk him down to the cabins, so you can come too."_

 _Jane nodded, and fell into step with us, walking between Chiron and me._

 _"_ _So who's your godly parent?" Jane asked me, her dark eyes inquisitive._

 _"_ _Er," I muttered. "I don't actually know…"_

 _"_ _Really?" she exclaimed. "Don't all half-bloods know their parent?"_

And now _that_ daughter of Nyx, the one who'd helped Nico rescue me from Jake's own headquarters even though she had no training or experience, the one who'd been the most anxious for my return when I'd set out across the Fields of Silence, and the one who'd believed in me even as she was overcome by her own darkness, now stood outside this building, opposed to all the people she once knew as friends.

There's a lot of ways to be hurt in this world, but there's few things that go beyond mere pain and simply leave a void.

I rolled onto my side. But maybe all this was just academic. Battles are chaotic. The next time we fought Tartarus's gang of mindless minions, things were bound to be highly frenetic. The chances of me specifically facing Jane in that kind of disorder were tiny. There were too many variables.

But my rationalisations never convinced anyone, least of all myself. I knew it would happen. The how, the where, or the when were irrelevant. Sooner or later, I was going to be forced to confront Jane in real, unrestrained battle, and then—

But combat itself wasn't what scared me. What truly frightened me was, not only was I unsure if Jane would kill me if she had to, but I didn't know what _I_ would do if I was faced with that choice.

* * *

The sound of rapid typing woke me. My first thought was that it was better than being woken by the sound of rapid gunfire.

(I have such a positive outlook on life.)

The typing ceased a few seconds after I woke, as though its sole purpose had been to evict me from the comfortable sanctuary of sleep. Now that its malevolent task was done, it could vanish without trace. I lay still, my eyes shut tight, enjoying the peace and quiet, aware that it was most likely the first and last enjoyable experience I'd have all day.

It was with bleak resignation that I finally surrendered to the inevitable reality of the new day, opened my eyes, and glanced around.

Kevin stood at the computer screens, watching the video feed from outside. I peered up at him for a long, confused moment, before saying, "How did you get that thing on?"

He started, and looked at me, before turning back to the screen. "I hit the _on_ button and clicked the icon that said _Surveillance Feed_. Pretty clever, right?"

I snorted, and lay back down, not yet equal to the herculean task of standing up. We were silent for a while, as I, with reluctance, became more awake and Kevin, with intent, watched the feed.

"Anything going on out there?" I asked, without looking up.

"Not really," Kevin replied, in a characteristically grateful tone. "The monsters are just standing around. They were sleeping earlier but I guess they're ready to eat some bones now."

I nearly didn't ask the next question, but I got it out before I could change my mind. "Any sign of Jane?"

"No. I think she's in the tavern."

Kevin paused, and I could practically hear his mind turning as he considered whether or not to say something about Jane. He must have decided it was too early in the morning for such a dangerous topic, because he just said, "What do you think is going to happen now?"

I told him the idea I'd pieced together last night: my belief in the strength of my mortal neutrality and in Alice's established relationship with Jack. Kevin made positive sounds of assent.

"That could work," he said, when I finished. There was a few taps on the keyboard, then footsteps, and Kevin sat down on his sleeping bag, next to me. "But we can't know for sure what will work. There's a lot of things about Jack that we don't know."

"I was thinking the same thing. Problem being?"

"We don't know how bad his issues with the gods are," Kevin shrugged, confirming my concerns. "Hell, let's be clear about this. We don't know how much he _hates_ the gods. Negotiating with him might not be as simple as just saying, we're all nice people and you should help us, pretty please, for the good of the universe. We might have to work for it."

"If we do, then we will," I said, surprised by his morbid tone. "What's the problem with that?"

He sighed, and ran a hand through his sleep-ravaged hair. "I'm just thinking about what Olivia said. How much time do we have to talk before things change? The empowered circle might go down in a few days, and _then_ what will we do?"

"Jack seems pretty confident in his defences."

"And that's good enough for you?" Kevin gave me a disbelieving stare. "Come on, Cyrus, you're one of the most ruthless people I've ever met—"

"Wow, thanks," I muttered.

"—and you know as well as I do that we can't take _anything_ for granted now. Once Tartarus attacked Olympus directly, everything went up for grabs."

I didn't reply for a long moment. Then I said, "You're right. But we can't waste time worrying about things we don't have control over. We could try convincing Jack to let Olivia look at his power source, but even if we know how much time we have, it won't make much difference. We have to focus on our objective. If we get occupied with all these other tangents—"

"Because the army of monsters sitting outside ready to kill us is such a _tangent_ ," Kevin muttered, though naturally I ignored him as he had me.

"—we'll never get the damn piece of darkness. Tartarus put those monsters there to scare us—"

"No way."

"And we _can't_ let him manipulate us," I finished doggedly. "Let's do what we gotta do, and then we can run like hell afterwards."

Kevin nodded, placated though not quite reassured by my single-mindedness. We sat in silence, me contemplating my dark and terrible future (getting out of the sleeping bag, to be exact), while my friend gazed into the middle distance and, presumably, visualised the innumerable terrible things that were going to happen to us in the next twenty-four hours.

See, I was a pessimist, but Kevin was a _pragmatist_. He outlined the positive possibilities when he saw them, but he also recognised and explained how disasters could occur with the terrifyingly neutral logic that firebrand pessimists like me lack. For Kevin, everything was reducible to a battle plan. He saw the patterns, the connections, and the lines of attack and defence with perfect clarity, and because of this he often picked out the strategic points that other people (me, for instance) completely missed. This made him an invaluable asset in any conflict, and sometimes I wondered if he was actually a misplaced son of Athena.

Of course, like a lot of children of Ares, emotional skills didn't accompany his strategic insights, so he often overlooked the unpredictable, unreliable human element. He could win a war, but he was ill-equipped to deal with problems of the heart and soul, as demonstrated by his inability to talk about Jane.

The daughter of Nyx hadn't been especially close to Kevin, but I knew they'd always respected each other as half-bloods who didn't try to blend in. The problems raised by her defection were hard for me, but I could see that Kevin just didn't _know_ how to respond to it. Even as I lay there, thinking this through, he glanced up at the computer screen, and a pulse of muddy grey disturbed his aura.

And it wasn't just Jane. The longer this war went on, the more difficult it had to be for the half-bloods to believe in themselves. I'd been back merely a few days, but I could already see Kevin's hope waning under Tartarus's chilly pressure.

"Hey," I said, sitting up. Kevin met my eyes, his face tense in a way that was almost unnoticeable - but if there's one thing I do, it's notice things. "We'll find a way, right? This isn't going to be a fun ride, but we've been in worse. Remember Alcatraz?"

"For some reason that isn't an inspiring memory."

"Yeah, but we got out of there alive," I said. "It could have been worse. Look, I know things have been bad for a long time, and probably only now am I understanding _how_ bad. We haven't had _any_ luck, and things just got worse while I was away. But that doesn't mean we give in. There's always hope as long as we're alive. There's always a way to fight back the darkness as long as there's a spark of light still burning." I paused, thought, then added, "It's like chess. You don't give up until every viable move has been explored, because who knows what might happen?"

Kevin was silent for a long moment, just looking at me, and I was afraid that my words were too trite for his utilitarian Ares mind, but finally he smiled.

"You're right, Cyrus," he said, standing up, his aura already looking brighter. "I'm looking at it the wrong way."

And as he buckled on his sword, and as I begrudgingly clambered out of the sleeping bag, I wondered if being the Lightbringer was something far, far simpler than I'd ever imagined.

* * *

Amongst my other worries had been the crucial question of breakfast, but as it turned out, Jack didn't want to starve us to death. Alice was cross-legged on the floor by the door, munching on something, when we emerged into the front room.

"Jack's provided breakfast," she told us. She nodded at a table by the fireside, on which boxes of granola bars and jugs of orange juice were set out. Demigods sat around the room, on the couch or the floor, finishing their rations, while a few were on guard in the shop.

(Though considering we were enclosed by a magic-reinforced celestial bronze wall, I couldn't really see the point of being _on guard_ , but hey, whatever makes you happy.)

Kevin and I came upon the rations just in time, because all but one of the boxes were already empty. We proceeded to have the modern equivalent of a Spartan breakfast, gulping down slightly stale baked granola and room-temperature juice before someone else could come along and finish it.

This important task complete, we turned our attention back to the trivial matter of averting the apocalypse.

"So what's the situation now?" I asked Alice, sitting next to her. Kevin stood, leaning against the wall, looking ready, now that he'd eaten, to confront any villain who dared disturb him.

The daughter of Apollo looked rested, but still strained, an odd condition common in half-bloods. "Jack's in his rooms. He said if we wanted to talk, we can hold a meeting in his study, but there can't be more than five of us at a time." She paused, then, "He wants you and me in any meeting. He won't talk if we aren't."

"Did he say why?" I asked, folding my arms and leaning my head against the wall. "I mean, I know why he wants _you_ there, but…"

"He didn't say anything else," Alice replied. "He just put out that stuff and went back upstairs."

I glanced at Kevin, who was frowning in thought. I was pleased with this confirmation of Jack's tolerance for me, but that was balanced by the weight of responsibility I felt settling onto me. This whole thing might come down to my ability to communicate with Jack. I looked around the room at the demigods, who looked hopelessly lethargic, though I knew that was just an act. Any one of them could leap into combat mode at the drop of an arrow. As I scanned them, I found myself wishing Zack was here. Despite our burying the proverbial hatchet, I wanted to see his face when he found out that the success of our apocalyptic mission depended, even partly, on me.

"Let's go up there now," I said, drawing a look of alarm from Alice.

"You're not on your game today, are you, Cyrus?" she said. "We can't antagonise him. If we just march up there like we own the place—"

"I didn't say that," I cut in. "We'll approach him respectfully, but we can't sit here waiting for him to _invite_ us to talk. We'll be waiting a _long_ time if we do that, and we don't even know how much time we _have_."

Alice looked at me for a moment, as though assessing the possibility that I'd finally lost my remaining marbles, before nodding.

"Alright. I'll bring in Annabeth, Percy and Olivia. Wait here."

She stood, and walked into the shop. I looked at Kevin again. His thoughtful expression had been replaced by one of grim resignation.

"Any advice?" I asked, getting to my feet.

He shifted his grim gaze onto me, and said, "Just don't get into any arguments. Maybe Jack likes you now, but it won't take much to change his mind."

I laughed, for once feeling confident. "Are you saying I'm _prone_ to arguments?"

"No, you're a very peaceable and diplomatic person, Cyrus, don't listen to him," Alice said in a completely toneless voice, as she crossed the room with the others behind her.

* * *

I thought Jack's rooms would be through the door at the end of the corridor, but in fact the other door in the corridor opened into his study. On our right as we entered was an adjoining wall, beyond which lay his bedroom, the door to which was ajar. A desk made from fine dark wood stood at the opposite side of the room to the wall, while the other two walls were taken up by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Unlike the harsher control room, a shaggy rug lay on the wooden floor.

Jack was at his desk when we entered, reading some scientific-looking journal. He waited until we'd filed in and Percy had shut the door, before laying the magazine down and turning his swivel chair to face us. He didn't speak, just looked at us.

I exchanged uneasy glances with Alice. The other three were conspicuously standing behind me and her. After an awkward moment of silence, I took my own advice and stepped forward.

"Jack, we need to talk about the piece of darkness," I said, as neutrally as possible.

The son of Hephaestus turned his merciless gaze on me, his expression offering no hint of compliance, or even interest. Alice stepped forward, to my relief.

"I understand that this is painful," she said, her tone compassionate. "I'm not here to cause you any more suffering than you've already had. The issue is that—"

"I _know_ what the issue is," Jack folded his arms. "You've made it apparent to me. You believe that Tartarus is going to take this piece of darkness unless you secure it."

Alice nodded.

"But you're assuming that his minions will somehow get in here," he went on. "I told you yesterday, my defences are impenetrable. Perhaps if this position is unchanged for the next year, I would be forced to surrender, but do you _truly_ believe that Tartarus can afford to maintain the siege for that long?"

She started to reply, but Annabeth, growing impatient, stepped forward.

"And what if you're wrong about your defences?" she asked, only a few feet from him. "Tartarus is a primordial _monster_ , not a two-bit spirit like Dolos who can hardly string a lasting curse together. The only reason he hasn't crushed Olympus already is that his full power is beyond his reach, but now he knows for certain that _you_ have the piece of darkness. Do _you_ truly believe that he'll withdraw from this place when he's so close to regaining something that's been withheld from him for thousands of years?"

Apparently Annabeth was Bad Cop. She kept her tone level, but her aura was sparking with streaks of grey fire, signal flares of frustration. Jack gazed at her for a long moment, impassive.

"What," he replied, leaning forward, "does that matter to _me_?"

We looked at him, and for the first time I felt fear, fear of this man's unquenched rage. Even Annabeth didn't have a reply.

"Let's presume that you're correct," he went on, looking at Annabeth, me and Alice in turn. "Imagine that in the next five minutes the shadow demigod and her servants manage to force a way in here and take the piece of darkness. You're telling me that's _it_? The West is finished, this Tartarus creature wins, and we'll be swept away by this terrible apocalypse of yours?"

Annabeth nodded. Jack stared at us, before continuing, "And you truly think that I won't be able to survive that? I've lived longer than most demigods can ever hope for, and I've done it without help from _any_ of the gods." He paused, his dark eyes burning. "It won't make any difference to me whether Olympus lives or dies. I'll be able to get by just the same. If anything, I'll be happy to watch those narcissistic fools fall."

He swung his chair around, and picked up his magazine again, completely withdrawing. A grim silence fell on the room. Annabeth glanced over her shoulder at us, and raised her eyebrows, as if to say, _Well, I'm all out._

Alice and I exchanged frustrated glances. This was supposed to be a negotiation, but it's difficult to discuss something when the other guy has no reason at all to compromise.

But, I realised, it's also difficult to discuss something when you keep attacking someone directly. We were confronting him head-on, but it was like trying to kick down a brick wall. We needed to step back, try a less aggressive method.

I met Alice's eyes again, and jerked my head towards the door. She nodded.

"A different question," Olivia said before I could move. "Could I see your power source for the wards? Only to make sure—"

Jack snorted, not even looking up at us. "That's an obvious trick. You want to see the engine room of my defences, so you can take control and then blackmail me." I glanced at Olivia, who paled abruptly. Apparently the daughter of Hecate had been hoping to do more than she'd revealed.

Jack glanced up now. "I thought you'd be more original than that. The demigods were smarter in my day. Why don't you get the hell out of my study, and don't come back unless you have something _useful_ to say?"


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Sixteen**

* * *

 _The unreal is more powerful than the real._

 _Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it._

 _Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die._

 _But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on._

–Chuck Palahniuk, 'Choke'

* * *

"This is a nightmare," Kevin groaned.

It was two in the afternoon. The desert heat had grown stifling, despite whatever high-tech air-conditioning Jack had installed. We were all in the front room and the shop, while the son of Hephaestus was holed up in his study. No further negotiation had taken place since he'd stonewalled us that morning, about six hours ago now.

At noon, the house had juddered violently, as though a low-level earthquake was rumbling through the building. The same thing had happened every half-hour since then. The first time, we'd jumped to our feet and drawn our weapons as though the enemy was already in the room. Only Annabeth had retained the sense to check the security feed.

The truth was, Jane had gotten bored waiting for us to come out, and she'd started ordering waves of monsters to charge at the bronze wall, at intervals. Twenty or thirty creatures at a time, every half-hour, threw themselves at the impenetrable barrier, as though they had a hope in Hades of battering it down. Every time the monsters crashed into the wall, the bronze plating pulsed with bluish-grey light, and they were vaporised in seconds. The resulting shockwave ran through the whole building, knocking over glasses and moving furniture, but Jack's defences absorbed the impacts without any other repercussions.

"But there _will_ be repercussions," Olivia shook her head. "This is going to wear out the wards, and use up the empowered circle's energy even faster."

Kevin, the daughter of Hecate and I were sitting on the couch together, staring at the burned-out coals in the fireplace and bleakly discussing our Kafkaesque situation. The other demigods were sitting or standing around in twos and threes, not a drop of good cheer between them all. Annabeth was sharpening her dagger with aggressive intensity in the shop, while Bradley sat on the floor opposite her, staring up at the ceiling. A few feet away from me, Alice and Leo were playing rock, paper, scissors over and over again, like broken robots.

"But that _will_ take a while, right?" I asked Olivia, looking past Kevin to give her a hopeful look.

Of course, she shook her head. "I can't see any wards under this pressure remaining stable for more than two or three days. Hades, we're _lucky_."

"Say that again," Kevin muttered. He'd been sitting on the couch for so long, he'd slid halfway off it. He stared into the empty fireplace as though it was the pit of Tartarus itself. "I could have sworn that you just used the word 'lucky', but I must have misheard you."

"We _are_ lucky," she insisted. "The only reason Jane isn't putting more pressure on us is that she can't replenish her forces fast enough. If she could summon monsters even twice as fast as she can now, we'd probably be already dead."

"I am aware that you're trying to make me feel better," Kevin said, sliding another inch off the couch, "but I get the feeling that you don't have much practice at this, because I actually feel worse."

Children of Ares get real dark when they have nothing to do. Clarisse was engraving her initials into the mantelpiece as we spoke - and she was doing it with the _pommel_ of her sword.

My patience was stretched pretty thin, too. The whole thing was ridiculous. No-one seemed to know what to do. Someone had suggested searching the place for the piece of darkness, but the likelihood that Jack would then happily give us up to the nightmares outside was too high to ignore.

At this point, we were just waiting for Jack to start talking to us again, but I was the only one who seemed to realise that that was never going to happen. Probably it takes one to know one: the guy was almost as stubborn as _me_.

So we sat there, stewing in our frustration. About twenty minutes later, when the building juddered yet again as more monsters sacrificed their corporeal forms for the sole purpose of making our lives suck, I finally snapped.

"That's it," I said, jumping to my feet. "I'm going up there. I've had enough."

Kevin and Olivia stared at me with dull alarm. "Seriously?" he said. "On your own?" she asked.

" _Definitely_ on my own," I replied, glancing at the half-bloods, whose own intransigence was a close cousin of Jack's. "You guys really don't know how to _talk_ about things. You're way too used to resolving things with your damn swords. I'm going in alone, and I'm not leaving his room until I make something happen."

Kevin looked amused, but Olivia was unenthusiastic.

"What if you just antagonise him even more?" she asked, resting her chin on her hand. "He might turn against us even worse."

I glanced across the room at Clarisse, who'd perfected her engraving of her first initial, and was beginning to work on the second.

"I think that ship sailed already," I said darkly.

I left the room without speaking to anyone else, lest my trepidation at my course of action get the space to overcome my frustration. The only other demigod who realised what I was doing was Percy, and he just nodded at me in unhopeful solidarity.

I strode into the corridor beyond the adjoining door, not thinking too hard about what I was doing. If I did, I'd remember that it was a bad idea. I swung open the door to Jack's study and bound inside as though it was Christmas Day, and he Santa Claus.

"Hey, man," I said, with such forced cheer that I wouldn't have been surprised if my teeth cracked from the strain. "What's going on?"

Jack was hunched over his desk, scribbling something in a worn diary, a cigar smouldering in his mouth. He glanced up at me only after a prolonged pause.

"Oh," he said, looking away immediately. "It's you. The mortal. Did the half-bloods decide I wasn't worth their notice?"

I looked around for a chair, refusing to be made uncomfortable. "No, no, they're sitting out there feeling too unworthy to talk to you." I spotted a stool by the bookshelves. I brought it over to the desk. "Honestly, I'm getting bored just hanging around, so I thought I'd come up and see you. At least it's peaceful here. Nice place to work." I sat down, close to Jack.

We sat in silence then, as he kept on scribbling, but I didn't move. I just sat there, watching him, waiting for him to give in. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually, with a long-suffering air, he laid down his pen, and looked at me.

"What was your name again?" he rumbled, defiance glinting in his eyes. He puffed out a cloud of smoke, and took the cigar from his teeth.

"Cyrus. Cyrus Wright."

He snorted, which seemed to be his favourite gesture. "Hell of a name, that." He sat back in his chair. "Alright, talk. I suppose you've got a pleading speech about how I _must_ help you, how it's in my best interests."

I had, in fact, no clue what I was going to say. Thinking this one through didn't seem to be working, so I was relying on my instincts. "Not really. If anything, I'm just curious."

That got his interest. "Curious?" Jack raised one eyebrow, the least antagonistic thing I'd seen him do all day. He took a pull on the cigar. "About what?"

"Why you're so protective of this piece of darkness thing," I shrugged, keeping my tone light. "You seem to be taking all of this really personally."

" _Do_ I?" He raised the other eyebrow.

"Yeah," I said, sensing a lead. "I mean, it's just some artefact, right? It doesn't give you any power or anything. It's causing you a hell of a lot of trouble, so what's the point in protecting it like this?"

My feigned ignorance drew out Jack's interest some more. He turned his swivel-chair to face me, and his aura sparked with a flicker of pure white light, a literal glimmer of hope.

"You don't want to know that." He looked at me steadily. "You're only trying to relax me, trying to charm me into agreeing with you."

I raised my eyebrows, and leaned back as though shocked. "I'm not doing anything, Jack. I'm just talking. I'm curious. What do I care about any of this? I'm just the mortal guy they drag along to these things."

"Since you say that, I'm curious, too," Jack replied, the suggestion of warmth flickering in his dark eyes. He stubbed out the cigar on an ancient ashtray. "What's a mortal like you doing on a quest like this? You don't even have any unusual powers, from what I've seen."

" _Seeing_ is why I'm here. I have pure sight."

I said this with some drama, as though it explained everything, just in case the son of Hephaestus already knew about pure sight. But Jack just looked at me, unimpressed.

"You've heard of clear sight, right?" I asked. He nodded. "It's like that, only stronger. I can see through any illusions or tricks or shrouds or… anything, really. It's kind of like supernatural X-ray vision."

The son of Hephaestus was taken aback by that one. He leaned forward in his chair, for a moment forgetting to be antagonistic. "Interesting," he murmured, glancing to one side. "That could be a powerful skill, particularly," he looked back at me, "particularly if your enemy is the master of shadows and illusions. Why else are you here?"

The precision of his questioning threw me for a second. Jack's demeanour gave the impression of a guy who survived on his wits but didn't get much time to sharpen them. Right now, though, he seemed as incisive as a child of Athena. That was probably why I answered his question without reservation.

"I'm also sort of… there's this prophecy called the _prontos profiteia_. Maybe you've heard of it?" I asked him. Blank stare. "Okay, yeah, not a lot of people have. It's a master prophecy, in a way, that was given when Olympus first moved to America. It forecasts everything that will happen during their time here, and it foretold the Titan and Giant Wars. It also said that the shadows would rise and fight the gods. Tartarus, obviously. And," I paused, feeling a little self-conscious, "it says that someone with 'unhindered sight' will be able to save the gods from being destroyed."

Jack eyed me doubtfully. "And that's you?"

"Yeah," I replied. "What, don't you believe me?"

He twitched his head, in a noncommittal gesture, and sat back. "Prophecies rarely mean what people think they're going to mean. But that doesn't matter." He stared at the floor, turning things over in his mind, before saying, "Alright. You've answered my questions, and answered them fairly at that. Ask me what you want."

I felt a rush of triumph at this progression, but reminded myself that he hadn't actually said he would _answer_ my questions. I stopped myself from rushing, and thought it through. I needed something that would encompass the entire issue in one sentence, something that would make Jack see I was truly interested in his story.

"What," I asked, "is the connection between your wife, who helped you build this place, the piece of darkness, which is what everyone wants, and the gods, who everyone hates?"

Jack had been staring at the floor, but now he looked up at me with the air of a man who's heard the voice of a returning friend. He just gazed at me in muted amazement, before saying, "I guess you put the pieces together, huh?"

I nodded. He sighed, and rubbed his face with one hand, as though brushing away the emotions that sought to overwhelm him. When he spoke again, his tone was flat and neutral, but fragile, the disguise obvious.

"Amelia Cranston was one of the finest children of Hecate of her generation," he began, his gaze resting again on the wooden floor, as though he was merely talking to himself. "I met her when I first came to camp, age nineteen. It was the late sixties. The gods weren't paying much attention to their children in those days, busy as they were fighting a new war with some force in the East. There was fifteen or so of us 'old' demigods, and Amelia was one of us. I got to know her early on."

Jack paused, utterly still for a moment, even as his aura rippled like a river in a hurricane.

"Eventually, I realised there was nothing for me in the half-blood world," he went on. "Quests, battles, deaths, monsters… none of this interested me. Most of my siblings were at least six years younger, and they'd been at camp for long enough to be convinced of the exalted importance of a heroic life. Maybe I got there too late, or maybe the whole thing really is just bullshit. Either way, I decided to leave it behind after a year, and Amelia came with me.

"She had a future in the demigod world, unlike me, but she felt the same way about the marble facade, as we used to call it. We agreed that just because we'd inherited our talents from our parents didn't mean we owed them anything. After all, my father has never met me, and her mother only spoke to her twice. I didn't hate the gods back then, but I saw that they gave nothing to us, their usually accidental offspring, in return for what they took. And so we left.

"We weren't the settling-down type. We wanted to keep on the move. For about a decade, we travelled around the country, using our skills to make enough money for the next meal or the next bed. It was difficult, but not truly hardship. We didn't need much, and what we wanted we were able to get. A few monsters stumbled across our path, but we had enough training to protect ourselves. Just once, we really ran into trouble, and that— Well, that changed it all."

"What happened?" I prompted, when Jack paused, his anger resurfacing in a dark spark that ran through his ever-shifting monochrome aura.

"We were driving through the Nevada desert," he said, stroking his beard. "Our car broke down, not for the first time, and I had to fix it. It took a long time, longer than usual. I've wondered sometimes if it was sabotaged, just to make sure that things went the way they did. Anyway, we're stuck, at midnight, on the side of an empty road in the middle of the desert, when suddenly this pack of people - women, with wolves - appears out of nowhere."

"The Hunters of Artemis?"

Jack nodded. "They'd been tracking some dangerous creature, a manticore. They stopped to warn us that it wasn't safe to be out in the open the way we were." His brow tightened with rage. "Their leader, Artemis, offered us protection for the night."

Normally, I'd consider a goddess offering you protection from evil monsters roaming the night to be a very positive thing, but Jack's tone made it clear that it was anything but. "What happened then?" I asked, when he didn't continue.

He shifted around in his seat, not speaking until he'd settled again. "Well, maybe I was frustrated with the state of the car, maybe it was just the hot weather, or perhaps I didn't take too kindly to Artemis talking to us like we were lost children in need of a mother. The reasons don't matter. What happened was that I told her we didn't _need_ protection, that we didn't need a gaggle of radioactively luminous girl scouts to watch over us like we were still infants in our cradles."

Despite Jack's grim tone, I laughed. "You know, I've never actually _met_ Artemis, but I have a feeling she didn't really like that."

He, of course, snorted. "No, she didn't. I don't think anyone had spoken to the high-and-mighty queen of the warrior nuns like that in hundreds of years. In fact, she didn't know _how_ to respond, so she didn't react. She just offered us protection again.

"That was when my wife - we'd gotten married the year before this happened - stepped in.

"Amelia was always more levelheaded than me, but when she _did_ go over the edge, she was far more dangerous than I can ever be. When Artemis tried to make us let her help us, if you can follow that one, Amelia walked right up to the goddess, stood nose-to-nose with her, and said, 'You should leave now, or the manticore will be the least of your worries.'"

I couldn't help laughing again. I'd had a few dangerous run-ins with a couple of gods, but this was another brand of insanely righteous fury. It was a couple of moments before I stopped chuckling, Jack watching me with uncharacteristic good humour.

"Then Artemis finally reacted," he said. "Impudence from a man like me was something that she could accept without too much difficulty. After all, the ignorance of my gender was one of the reasons why she offers eternal maidenhood to her friends. But that kind of defiance from a woman - from someone she most likely deemed a potential recruit? It was too much. Without a word, she snapped her fingers, and a burning wave of white light flowed over us, fast and hard.

"It didn't feel like anything. If you closed your eyes, you wouldn't have known it was there. But when it faded away, I felt older, wearier. Amelia told me afterwards she felt the same. Then, Artemis fixed us with that high-and-mighty gaze of hers, and told us, 'From this day on, good fortune shall not know your name. Though you shall strive and fight for relief, the blessing of luck will always dance beyond your grasp.'

"And without another word, she and her lackeys cantered back into the darkness."

Jack fell silent, one foot tapping on the floor. I stared at him, and imagined two people facing down an ancient Olympian, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, for no reason other than wanting to retain their independence.

That took guts, even if it was insane.

"We didn't think much of her proclamations, of course," Jack went on. "We were young. We didn't realise we'd taken our defiance too far. We went our way, happy that we'd shown the Olympian we couldn't be steamrolled.

"It took a few months before we understood what had happened. Things started to go wrong, not in a significant ways, but there was a lot of little things, like our car constantly breaking down, or things going missing at bad moments, or people screwing us over more than usual. It was a while before we put one and one together, but eventually we realised that Artemis had cursed us. Not a lethal, dramatic curse like the ones in the myths, but it was bad enough to make our lives a hell of a lot harder than they needed to be.

"It wasn't long before it became impossible to keep travelling. We had to settle down if we were going to survive, so we picked this place, because it was a good community, with no mythological types or supernatural occurrences. All of that was destroyed, in the end. Maybe that's part of the curse, too."

He sighed heavily. "We tried to start a family, but Artemis's curse was against us once more. Turns out that procreation isn't just science, it needs some luck, and that was, as the goddess promised, the one thing we could never get. One by one, the things that I had or hoped to have faded away."

Jack fell silent, his eyes half-closed. For the first time, I felt genuine sympathy for the guy. He hadn't set out to fight the gods, he'd just been trying to live _his_ way, independent of inhuman influence. I even felt guilty, for coming into his life like this, for trying to take away more fragments of his lost freedom.

"And where does the piece of darkness come into it?" I asked, after a lengthy pause.

"That's the really strange thing, I never found out the full story," Jack looked up at me. "Amelia and I always travelled separately after we settled here, because we ran into less trouble that way. I'd pick up supplies for my forge, and later for our defences, and she'd hunt down magical items that she thought might be useful. About ten years ago, she came back from a trip to Mexico, where she'd met a mysterious stranger, who'd given her this."

He opened a drawer in the desk, and withdrew a small, wooden box, like a cigar case. A simple brass catch held it shut, but otherwise the box was unmarked. It was, however, shrouded in an intense black aura, like a heavy storm cloud compressed into a few inches. A shiver ran down my spine as I looked into it. That aura was like a void, waiting to swallow someone whole. Jack put the box on the desk, oblivious to the dark energy that clothed it.

"She told me that she'd been in the rainforest, working alone, gathering ancient Mayan rune-stones which had been abandoned there for hundreds of years. She was about to enter an ancient burial ground, when this stranger approached her. She couldn't remembered their appearance, not even the clothes they'd worn. All she remembered was what they'd told her. The stranger said that Amelia had to keep this artefact safe. It was hugely important that no-one even saw it, that it was never passed on to anyone, and that its secret died without ever being repeated."

Jack smiled ruefully. "That was obviously successful, right? We put it into safe-keeping, and I didn't think much of it for a long time. To be honest with you, I thought it was just a prank. But Amelia had learned something else. It took her a while to finally tell me, but she said that something terrible was coming, something that would put everyone in serious danger. We'd already begun planning our defences, but it was after Mexico that we started working on them, day and night. Amelia drove us on, always telling me that we needed to be ready when the storm came. Sometimes I thought she'd lost it, that the curse had driven her insane, but beneath that, I trusted her too much to disbelieve her."

"Then, six months after we finally finished the bronze wall and the wards, we heard that Kronos was rising again. Any doubts I had that Amelia had inhaled the wrong kind of smoke down in Mexico went away after that. Still, I believed that we'd done enough, that we'd keep our peaceful life, but in fact this was only the beginning."

Jack stopped, shaking his head, and he only continued when I prompted, "How?"

"Amelia was always very loyal," he said, with a resigned sigh. " _Too_ loyal. When the Titan War started, she felt that she needed to go back and help. It was crazy. She didn't even have any living friends at camp, and no-one from that world had tried to reach us. But her powers had developed a lot over the years, and she couldn't live with herself if she didn't contribute. I pleaded with her to stay. I told her that she hadn't fought monsters in twenty years, and there was no way she could survive. I said that even if she kept away from the battlefields, she was putting herself on Kronos's radar, and that would end in disaster.

"I couldn't convince her, no matter what I said. Finally I gave up, and offered to join her. I was prepared to give up my sanctuary, the life we'd built here, all of it, and plunge back into the world I'd escaped to watch over her. But she stopped me. She made me swear that I would stay here. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were sitting here, just like this, and she was about to leave.

"'You need to stay here and watch over the shard,' she told me. We didn't know it was a 'piece of darkness', we just called it the shard. 'It needs to be protected. No matter what, no matter what dangers arise, you must keep it safe.'

"'But what about _you_?' I asked her.

"'This is more important,' she insisted. 'Promise me. Swear that you shall never leave the shard unguarded, that you shall surrender it to none who seek it, that you will keep it from the world until you are unable to continue, and that you shall do what you must to ensure no-one _ever_ finds it after you die.'

"So, like a fool, I agreed. She left. She did not return. I never found out what happened to her. The last time I saw her, she was standing at the ley line at the end of the street, gathering her power for the jump. Now, I am here alone, with nothing of Amelia left to me except this thrice-damned box, and the promise I made her."

Jack stopped, slumped in the chair, and covered his face with his hands.

"I think she was imbalanced, towards the end." His voice was muffled by his thick fingers "Whatever happened in Mexico, it damaged her. I don't know what it was, she never really told me the truth. Maybe she wasn't able to." Jack glanced at me, his gaze sharp again. "But that doesn't matter now. All that matters is that the only link I have to Amelia is this. My promise. I know she wasn't thinking clearly when she left. I know it's possible she was wrong when she told me to protect this shard. But I _feel_ , deeper than anything else, that I have to keep my promise. If I give you this box, if I break my sworn oath to her, it means that she's _gone_. This was our final bond, and I'm not prepared to break it. Do you understand?"

I swallowed. I could feel his surging emotion like it was my own. The pain, the loss, the doubt mixed with anger. Probably it was a miracle that Jack himself hadn't gone insane from it all. "I do."

We stayed like that for a while, Jack slumped in the chair, talking without speaking, crying without weeping; me watching, feeling, hopefully even understanding. Nothing binds people to ideas and beliefs more strongly than love, especially the love of those long lost. It wasn't about the piece of darkness. It would have been just the same if Amelia had asked him to protect her hard-won rune-stones. He couldn't let it go. It was like asking him to tear off his own arm. At this moment, it was impossible.

But still, we had no choice. We needed to make it possible. Now that I knew Jack's story, I was the last person alive who wanted to cause him further pain, but we had an apocalypse to stop. A single person's broken life couldn't be allowed to cause the destruction of civilisation. We had to save Jack from his own rage and grief, if we were going to save the world.

But _how_? It was an impossible problem, a question that did not suggest a logical answer, a jigsaw puzzle missing half the pieces.

Perhaps, then, I just had to keep doing what had gotten me this far: follow my instincts. I took a deep breath, and starting talking again, without strategy or intention, just following the clues.

"Do you have any photographs of Amelia? Anything to remember her by?"

Jack shook his head. "Nothing. There was a few, but they were all lost or destroyed. Our cursed luck again. I had a locket left when she went to camp, and that," his expression darkened, "Dolos took that. I don't know how he managed it, but a while after he arrived here, the locket vanished from my bedside table. I confronted him in the tavern, and he showed it to me, taunting me, and hid it away with his sorcery before I could take it back."

"Really." Then an idea struck me; a bad one, probably, a crazy one, certainly, but it could work. It could _just_ work, if I just believed in it enough.

"What if we got it back for you?" I asked, hardly daring to breathe as light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

Jack eyed me, genuine interest, even hope, in his gaze.

"Do you think you could do that?" he asked, his hands dropping from his face.

"We could try," I shrugged, hoping that I wasn't signing us all up to another disaster. "I'm sure we could do it."

He looked at me for a long, searching moment, thinking, trying to believe. I watched countless emotions pass over his face and through his aura, as he wrestled with his ghosts, trying to find a way.

"Alright," Jack murmured, almost a whisper. "Alright. If you go to the tavern, and get back that locket, and if you _do_ get it back, then— then perhaps we'll be able to work something out."


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Seventeen**

* * *

 _Jesse: You either run from things or you face them, Mr. White._

 _Walter: Now what exactly does that mean?_

 _Jesse: I learned it in rehab. It's all about accepting who you really are. I accept who I am._

 _Walter: And who are you?_

 _Jesse: I'm the bad guy._

–'Breaking Bad'

* * *

A smooth panel of bronze, indistinguishable from the wall surrounding it, slid to one side. I peered through the opening, into the thick darkness of midnight, ready to strike down any loitering monsters with my righteous fury.

(Stop laughing any time you like.)

"Anyone out there?" whispered Olivia, next to me. Jack was motionless behind me, but I could sense his alertness.

It hadn't taken much effort to sell my plan to the half-bloods. With the literal hounds of hell encroaching, any possible solution, however hare-brained, was always going to be greeted with enthusiasm.

The real problem had been picking the schmuck who was going to sneak past the frustrated monsters into the lair of an evil spirit and look for a trinket which could be anywhere, or nowhere. It won't surprise you that we were short on volunteers for _that_. A couple of older half-bloods were game, but Annabeth reminded us of the strong scent borne by children of major gods

"The second you step outside," she told a disappointed Clarisse, "the monsters will smell you coming. Even in their _sleep_ they'll smell you. There's no way you'll get past them without being noticed, even with Olivia's invisibility stone."

The next option was sending one of the less powerful, less mythologically smelly demigods, but none of them were exactly throwing themselves into the mission. At first Annabeth simply asked for volunteers, and then she started going around the room trying to hector minor demigods into sacrificing themselves for Zeus and for country. I finally snapped when Clarisse, Kevin and Leo started trying to drag Bradley towards the back door.

"Look, _I'll_ do it if it's going to be such a problem," I said.

I was being _sarcastic_ , but in times of crisis demigods tend to take everything painfully literally. It took about two seconds for everyone to agree with my involuntary offer to volunteer, and here I was, being prepped by Olivia to sneak past a pack of sleeping nightmares, into the residence of a spirit of misery, in order to steal a locket (the location of which I did not know) in the _slight_ hope that this would help Jack to accept the loss of his wife, so that he would give us a fragment of a primordial being's bound power.

My life, I _swear_.

I was concerned that my sneaking out might be impeded by, you know, _the bronze wall enclosing the house_ , but Jack and Amelia had planned for even this eventuality. They'd built an escape door in the study.

There was only two minor issues with this. Firstly, the door was behind a bookcase. When Jack told me about this back door, I _assumed_ that the bookcase would slide aside on some ingenious mechanism. I didn't think this was an unreasonable assumption, given the grand machinery built around the house.

In fact, there was no ingenious mechanism. The bookcase had to be _dragged_ out of the way, which took a _while_. While Jack laboured and huffed the furniture to one side, I informed him of my view that a back door is only useful when you can actually _go through it_ , but the son of Hephaestus didn't seem impressed.

The other minor problem was that, when finally reached, the back door just opened out onto some nice, smooth, impenetrable bronze wall. But this problem, too, had a solution, and that solution was not a hacksaw, which was what I expected after the damn bookcase. A keypad was set on the wall next to the doorframe, and when Jack entered a combination, a person-sized rectangle of bronze simply slid to one side, letting in the night air and, finally, letting me _out_.

"The empowered circle goes down while this is open," he told us now, as Olivia took a heavy runestone from her backpack. "I'll have to seal it as soon as you leave, and you'll need to send me a signal when you're coming back."

"We've got that covered," Olivia told him, handing me the stone, before rummaging in her bag for another.

"So it's a small, silver locket, oval-shaped, on a chain of bronze beads, with a photograph on one half and a mirror on the other," I repeated, for the fifth time. It would be mortifying if I brought back the wrong goddamn trinket.

"Yeah." Jack folded arms. "I know Dolos took a lot of valuable items from around the town. You might have to search his hoard. I think he keeps it behind the bar, so you won't need to go upstairs, where he and the daughter of Nyx are bound to be holed up."

"Alright," I said, nodding shakily, my voice not much steadier. Olivia offered me another stone.

"Hold onto this," she said. I grasped it, but she didn't let go. "It's a cloaking rune, like what we used back in capture-the-flag. As long as it's in contact with your skin, you'll be invisible to pretty much anyone. Just don't put it down, or…"

"…drop it? I understand." I nodded, and Olivia let go of the stone. I switched it to my left hand, and glanced at Jack and Olivia. Both of them were staring at me, but in a vacant way, as though they weren't quite sure where to look.

"Can you guys hear me?" I whispered. Olivia just nodded, but Jack started, as though hearing a ghost.

"The stone has a limited lifespan," she said to my shoulder. "It should have enough power to get you through this, but don't waste any time. It could die without warning."

"Awesome," I murmured, patting my pockets, making sure I had everything for the tenth time. "I'm set. See you on the other side." I swallowed, calmed my breathing, and stepped outside.

I nearly walked off then, but remembering that neither half-blood could _see_ me, I hissed at them, " _I'm outside._ " Olivia gave a stoic thumbs-up to the empty space on my right, and Jack hit a button. The chunk of bronze slid back into place in total silence, moving fast enough to decapitate someone.

I looked around. Jack's bronze wall towered above me. It looked much as I'd imagined, a single cylinder of polished metal, enclosing the entire house. Here and there, small holes disclosed thin wires which snaked across the surface of the wall. The backyard, where I stood, was a few metres of dusty ground, with abandoned tools, a wheelbarrow and a couple of cracked anvils scattered around. A lone arc light in a mesh cage glowed on the wall, at about the level of the first floor. In the dense darkness of the night beyond, its thin illumination seemed searing, the light of a captured sun.

I turned, and started edging around the wall, toward the front of the house. The night air was cool, the heat of the day long lost to the clear desert sky. A hint of a breeze curled around me, lifting the tips of my hair, though in the still danger of the monster-laden darkness, it felt more like an alien throat casting breath on my neck.

As I tiptoed around the bronze-sealed house, I listened out for any sounds, even a whisper that might warn me of a lurking monster. The night seemed silent, but as my senses adjusted, I caught onto a low, rushing sound, like a distant but heavy wind. I frowned, and made the last few steps, onto the porch at the front of the house.

Just as we'd seen on the security feed, the monsters were asleep on the ground. A second arc light, at first-floor level like the other, illuminated the creatures nearest the porch; while across the street, a couple of oil lanterns cast a thin glow around the tavern porch. In between, dracaena, Hyperboreans, empousa and telkhines, even a couple hellhounds, were curled up on the dusty road, peaceful and still, like some kind of nightmarish nursery.

And now that I was close to them, I realised that that rushing noise was the sound of the monsters' slow breathing as they slept. The menacing slayers of half-bloods appeared almost harmless, their aggressiveness and violence smoothed away by the calming touch of unconsciousness. The monster nearest me, a scrawny telkhine that didn't seem fit to be anywhere near a battlefield, looked no more dangerous than a outsize Halloween toy.

But that breath of danger I'd felt the night before, the near-unnoticeable undercurrent of menace, still ran through the town's atmosphere. It lurked just beyond everything else, out of reach and view. It didn't really matter, or probably didn't. Yet it unnerved me a little, made me grip the invisibility stone a bit tighter.

I glanced around, searching for the best route to the tavern. Other than the monsters on the road, there was no-one to be seen; but I couldn't see into the tavern itself, though its door was ajar.

I debated my options. The sanest thing to do would be to walk around the monsters. It would be a hell of a lot safer than sneaking _through_ them and running the risk of waking them. It'd cost me several minutes, but I would greatly reduce my chances of losing a limb, which is always a compelling argument.

On the other hand, in the dim light from the lamps, I couldn't see very far down the street. What if I went down there, expecting to skirt around the monsters, only to find other creatures on guard, awake and hungry? The entire town was dark apart from the muddy patches of light around the tavern and Jack's house, and no-one had thought it a good idea to give me a torch. As much as I hated the idea of walking through a minefield of nightmarish demons, at least it was a danger I could _see_. If I wandered into the darkness in search of a safer route, I had no idea what I might run into.

I considered it as I would two chess moves, one with clear risk and unclear gains, the other with _very_ unclear risk and not much else.

Hell, I was already in a crazy risky situation. I might as well embrace things and get out of this as fast as I could. I was already in the fire, so I better run right through it before I turned to ash.

Before I could change my mind, I stepped off the porch, into the road. I kept moving, the time for thinking gone. I skirted the scrawny telkhine, then goose-stepped over the legs of a dracaena, praying that its snakehead-feet wouldn't notice me. My heart beat a frenzied tribal war-dance, growing worse with each monster I passed. I told myself it was just an obstacle course at camp, a fun task with more drama than danger; but I've always been an unconvincing liar.

Another step, and I stood in front of a Hyperborean's head, a disproportionate thing, almost as big as I was tall. Its face, well, faced me. Even in the mildness of the night, the snow giant's breath was icy, billowing in freezing white sheets each time he exhaled. The ground around him sparkled with frost worthy of a January morning.

I chewed my lip, figuratively frozen at the edge of a literal frozen patch as I plotted a way around the Hyperborean. The ice sparked in the moonlight, dangerous in an almost gleeful way. I could double back, move down the street a couple yards, and avoid the giant entirely, removing the risk of slipping and falling on the ground next to the damn thing's head. But that would cost me time, and Olivia's warning that the invisibility stone could die at any time echoed in my mind.

My only real advantage was that concealment stone. If it ran out of power, I'd be on thin ice _then_. I had to get this done before it died.

Praying that the monsters couldn't hear my pounding heart, I began tiptoeing around the giant's head, and stepped onto the frost like it was a nuclear minefield. The first few steps were okay, as the ice wasn't thick enough to be really slippy. I edged forward, too afraid to even breathe.

It was going pretty great for a good thirty seconds. I made it halfway around the giant's head just fine, as though the universe had decided to take my side.

Then, just as I passed the top of his head, the ice crunched under my feet.

I froze, if you'll excuse the pun.

The ice was thicker on this side of the giant. It looked like he'd been lying on his back here before he'd rolled over. Eight feet of thick snow and ice lay between me and the porch, making the tavern's front door seem about as distant as Timbuktu.

I glanced around, trying to move as little as possible, gripping the invisibility stone tight enough to crack my knuckles. I didn't hear any signs of a reaction to my initial crunching, but when I walked across that frost, I was certain to wake up some sleeping dragons - or rather dracaena.

The giant slept on, oblivious to the terrified mortal standing over it. The ice seemed to be hardening before my eyes, as the air around the Hyperborean grew even colder. I looked over my shoulder. With some frustration I realised that the patch of ice around the giant was _growing_. The ground I'd just crossed was now covered in snow, too. If I tried to retreat, I'd be forced to crunch through several new feet of ice crystals. Whether I moved onward or backward, I risked rousing the things that wanted to eat me.

I sighed, as quietly as I could. Things always had to get so damn _difficult_ in the half-bloods' world.

There was no choice. I had to get into the tavern. My only hope was to disappear inside before the monsters realised where I'd gone. I drew in a breath, tensed, and threw myself across the stretch of ice in three big strides. I ignored the crunching on my first stride, the cracking on my second, and the single loud snap on my third. I dived across the porch, and got through the tavern door before I stopped to look back.

I'd expected the monsters to immediately awake and erupt into angry rampaging, but only a few of them were roused by the loud sounds from the ice. A dracaena sat up, peering around suspiciously, while a couple of telkhines muttered to each other in some odd, sea creature-like language. Somehow, though, none of them realised that an intruder had just slipped past.

Breathing heavily from effort, fear and relief, I turned to look inside the tavern.

Ten or twelve small round tables with accompanying chairs were scattered around the large room, an archetypal western saloon. The bar ran across the room, directly opposite the door. The place was lit by a desk lamp on a table in the middle of the room, its head pointed up at the ceiling. The yellow light from the bulb was weak, and the edges of the room were left in shadow. Still, it was bright enough to see that there was no-one in here, neither monster nor human.

I stepped forward, relieved, but stopped, when I remembered how demigods like Jane could disappear themselves and others into the shadows. A normal person would have found this thought disheartening, but it made me more cheerful because for once, my pure sight became a very useful tool.

I blinked once, twice, engaging my enhanced vision. Once, it had taken me a few minutes' concentration to get it in gear, but now I brought it to life with a an idle thought's worth of effort. I scanned the room. As always with my sight, inanimate objects became amorphous, like a Salvador Dali painting. The tables and chairs looked less like solid constructions and more like fragile chunks of energy formed into unstable shapes. The lamp's light rippled, like a shallow pond of stained water floating in the air; the shadows, too, trembled and flickered with subtle, indiscernible movement, as though stirred by an invisible breeze.

But apart from these psychedelic visions, which were normal features of my sight, everything looked the same, with no ominous figures lurking under any illusions. I scanned the bar and still found no living or undead thing. I was alone.

I nodded, and my sight faded away, along with some of my nerves. I walked further in, scanning the room, this time for the locket, or some sign of Dolos's hoard. I looked at every table, and even checked under them, but there wasn't so much as an empty beer bottle to be found, never mind Jack's stolen trinket. The damn place was tidier than just about any tavern in history.

I went to the bar. Behind it, the requisite shelves of beer, wines and spirits filled most of the wall, with a shut door in the right corner. When I saw it, I remembered what Jack said about Dolos and Jane being upstairs, and I crouched down reflexively, below the bar. I stayed like that for a long moment, my heart thumping as I strained, listening for movement behind the door.

A minute or two passed, but there was only silence. In here, the monsters' sleeping sounds were inaudible, and I couldn't hear anything. It was eerie, but not as eerie as approaching footsteps would have been. I straightened up, gripping my concealment stone so tightly that my whole hand was hurting.

I needed to check behind the bar, but the flap was right in front of the door upstairs. There was no way I was getting that close to the door if I could avoid it. At least if I was a couple metres away, I'd have time to react if it opened. I pulled myself up onto the countertop, then slipped down on the other side, next to the taps, trying to move like a cat but aware of every rustle of my clothes, every tiny noise which seemed to sound out like a burglar alarm in the silence.

I crouched, very still, listening in case my movement really _had_ been an alarm, but still there was nothing. I breathed deep, trying to keep myself calm.

The area behind the bar was a lot darker, the lamplight a mere suggestion of illumination. I withdrew the second stone Olivia had given me from my pocket, murmured the magic word, and shook it.

The stone lit up with a pale green glow, bright enough to illuminate a few feet around it. I started casting around, searching for Dolos's hoard, or for some indication of a hiding place. I crept along, up to the top of the bar, before reluctantly moving toward the other end, where the door stood like the entrance to my tomb.

And then I saw it, on a shelf to the left of the taps. A brown carton, twice the size of a shoebox, sat on a recessed shelf, its lid askew, as though it had just been hurriedly replaced.

Relief rushed through me. To most people, this would have been _just_ a box, but I could see the thin golden aura, almost too faint to see, that suggested the presence of a powerful collection of items. I put down a stone, reached up, and slid the box off the shelf. Still listening out for approaching footsteps, I lowered it to the floor, and flicked it open.

It was full of all kinds of memorabilia, junk, and little things that are so dear to their owners but irrelevant to everyone else. Handfuls of rings were mixed in with other jewellery, a few ornate pens, a pair of spectacles with one lens missing, tiny painted ornaments, and a couple of musical boxes. Nervously, I poked into the heap of thieved memories, trying to find the locket by touch.

The stolen items slid under my fingers, clinking like fairy bells. The sound seemed deafening to me, but I ignored it. The only thing I could do now was find the locket as fast as possible. I lifted the larger items off the top of the pile, resisting the urge to dump the contents of the damn box onto the floor. I searched like that for a couple of minutes, praying that the locket would appear under the next layer of rings, or the next gaudy ornament. But I could find nothing that even resembled a locket, and I began to despair that the thing was at the very bottom of a worryingly deep box - or, worse, that it wasn't even here.

I was about to start praying to Hermes, god of thievery, when I put my hand at random into a tangle of necklaces, and my fingertips brushed an oval-shaped piece of silver.

I had to stop myself yelling, "Yes! Screw you, spirit of misery douchebag!"

Carefully, I pulled the locket out of the box.

It was just as Jack at described: silver, held together by a single hinge, hung on a chain of bronze. I popped it open, and a black-and-white photograph of a woman with intense eyes and a proud face stared out at me, striking even in this almost-darkness. The light from my stone was very faint, and I straightened up to inspect the locket in the lamplight. The last thing I needed was to bring back the wrong piece of jewellery, though I was already sure this was the right one.

I turned as I stood up, to face towards the lamp in the middle of the tavern. I stood staring at the locket for a moment before I glanced up, absent-mindedly, to check the room for monsters.

I didn't see any monsters, but Jane was standing on the other side of the bar, facing me.

I stared at her.

My first thought was, oh _crap_. My second thought was, it's okay, I have my concealment stone in my left hand, she can't see me.

My _third_ thought was, _JESUS CHRIST_ that's the illumination stone in my hand I put the concealment stone on the ground when I opened the damn box.

The two of us just stared at each other for a moment, frozen, me still holding the locket up to the light, Jane with her arms at her sides, her right hand close to her sword's hilt.

"I thought I heard something," she said, her tone flat, empty of any detectable emotion. "What are you doing here?"

My muscles decided to work again. I snapped the locket shut, and shoved it in my pocket, saying as I did so, "Just picking something up for Jack. Why, what are _you_ doing here?" I glanced at the floor. The other stone lay at my feet.

Olivia and I had planned for my being discovered in this way, but I needed the _two_ stones in my hands if I was to put our escape strategy into action. I debated lunging for the invisibility stone, but Jane knew my moves better than anyone. She recognised my calculating glance. "Whatever it is, don't bother," she said. "I know you're fast, but you're not fast enough."

I looked at her. She was right, of course. There was no way I could get to that stone without leaving myself open to her attack. This was a familiar game to us both. We'd been sparring partners for a long time. As long as we were in this position, I didn't have a chance of outmanoeuvring her.

My only hope, then, was to _change_ the position.

"Where's Dolos?" I asked, resting my hand on my weapon's hilt.

"Upstairs, in his cell," Jane replied, doing the same. "Jake told me to keep him out of trouble until I need him."

I'd been trying to maintain combat professionalism, but hearing my friend refer to my enemy in such a familiar, even _trusting_ tone broke the paper-thin barrier I'd erected against my personal emotions. Before I could stop myself, they came pouring out.

"Why, Jane?" I whispered, simultaneous urges to lunge at her and to weep at her grappling for space. "Why are you doing this to me? Why are you doing it to _yourself_?"

Her darkened aura shivered, but with what emotion I couldn't sense.

"I told you why," Jane murmured, staring at the bar between us. "To protect myself. To protect my father. The only way to keep us safe from the monsters is—"

"To join them?" I interrupted, my tone becoming harsh as my anger rose like a growing flame. "To become _one_ of them? Listen to yourself, Jane. You're _justifying_. I know the real reason why you've done this, even if you won't admit it." I paused, but she said nothing, so I pushed on. "You joined Jake because you want _power_. You _saw_ the kind of power he has, what he can do, and you decided that was what you wanted, what you _needed_."

"That's not true," Jane said, half-heartedly.

"No, it's _true_ ," I spat, my anger pouring out now, too hot and fast to stop, like lava. "You always wanted to fulfil your potential, even though you never said so. I saw how you reacted to being called the child of a minor goddess. You wanted to be as powerful as Nico, and so you went to Jake because you know he can give you that, but the thing is that you're _wrong_. You can _never_ be like Nico, not if you're capable of betraying your friends the way you—"

Against anyone else, I would have never seen the attack coming, but I was so familiar with Jane's sword-fighting that I could guess when she was about to strike just by watching her aura. That familiarity, in that moment, kept me alive. Jane's sword came at me with furious speed, but my dagger cleared its sheath just in time. I stopped her blade a few inches from my throat.

"That's not _true_ ," she hissed, leaning over the bar to put on more pressure.

"You can't lie to me, Jane," I gasped, struggling to hold her back. Our blades ground against each other, bronze and iron screeching under the strain. "You're a good person, but you're making a lot of bad choices, choices you don't have to—"

"You're _wrong_ ," Jane snapped, her voice raising to a shout, and I don't know how she did it, but suddenly she was over the bar. I slipped aside in time to avoid being shoved into the shelf of glass bottles. Jane's sword sailed through the air where I'd just been, slicing in half several bottles of Jack Daniels with a _crash_.

She recovered fast, swinging now at my legs. I parried, shoving the illumination stone into my pocket at the same time, and then lunged at her, trying to get her on the defensive. Her balance was unsteady, and she was forced to step back as she blocked my attacks. I leapt onto the bar before she could attack again, but I'd barely found my balance on the polished countertop when Jane swept her arm in a broad gesture, and a blast of shadow threw me into the air.

I flew across the room, and crashed into a table, which promptly collapsed from the impact. I lay there in the ruins of the furniture, my head spinning, my back throbbing from where the table dug into it, as Jane marched across the room. Then she was over me, and I rolled left, right, dodging her jabs. I swept a leg out wildly, managing to force her back. I found my feet, still dizzy, and came at her, the energy of my anger compensating for my lopsided movement. Jane was still off-balance, and I batted her wavering sword aside, before slashing at her left shoulder.

She reared back, but the blade still caught her. It tore open her denim jacket, cutting into her bicep.

She cried out in pain, back-pedalling. I just stared at her for a moment, briefly shocked by what I'd done. The wound wasn't deep, but it looked painful, the blood already soaking into her clothes. But then Jane's aura convulsed, like it was casting off the shock of the injury, and she darted towards me again, her black sword hard to see in the semi-darkness.

More tables and chairs were slashed or overturned as we weaved around the tavern, trying to land blows. Jane twisted inside my guard, trying to disarm me, but my judo training kicked in, and I used her momentum against her, grabbing her left wrist, drawing another cry of pain as I accidentally tugged on the gash. I ignored that, and swung her past me into a table. She hit it but didn't fall down, and reached out with her shadow power, grabbing hold of a fallen chair and throwing it at me. I ducked, escaping a blow to my head from the wooden legs, but the chair flipped in mid-air and collided with my right shoulder.

I cried out, and nearly dropped my knife as the impact knocked me to the floor. My shoulder hurt now as well as my back, but my dizziness was gone, and the adrenaline kept me going. I got upright again, as Jane dashed towards me, going for my throat. I glanced the blow off my knife, and found my chance. Before she could react, I stepped inside Jane's guard, and jammed the guard of my knife against her sword's hilt.

I twisted, trying to wrench the sword out of her grasp, but Jane got a second hand on the hilt and gripped tight. For a moment, we were almost still, locked together by our opposing pushing and pulling.

In these moments, the strangest thoughts occur. I realised that I was standing with the lamp to my back, so the light was shining into Jane's face. I met her eyes, bright in the incandescent glow. Somehow, I could see the old Jane in there, still alive beneath the angry mask, a prisoner of her own rage. I didn't even need to look at her aura to sense the conflict tearing through her, the fury fighting with the sorrow, her loyalty in a death match with her pride.

"Jane," I whispered. She stared up at me, her eyes widening, totally furious and totally lost, each emotion worsening the other. "Jane. Come back."

We swayed from side to side, still pressing, trying to force apart each other's grips.

"It's too late for that, Cyrus," she whispered back, with a slight shake of her head.

Anger - and something else, too, something worse: disappointment - rushed through me, and I twisted and pulled at once, fighting with fresh strength. Jane's sword fell to the floor between us, but before I could kick it away, her aura pulsed as she drew on her powers. I ducked just in time, and the blast of shadow sailed over my head, but this diversion gave Jane the chance to grab her sword. She threw herself at me, her sword strikes clanging as I blocked, again and again. Then she tried once more to slash my legs, and as I blocked that attack, she swept up her left hand.

The undercut of cold shadow power caught me under the chin, and I was thrown back, once more flung into a table, even more painfully this time. All my breath went out of me in a gasp, and my knife skittered away as the table collapsed under me.

I glanced around, dazed. I was in the middle of the tavern, which was even more poorly lit now because I'd knocked over the table with the lamp. I could see my knife, about ten feet away, near the bar; but before I could try to move, Jane stepped over a heap of broken wood and stood over me, her sword raised.

"I'm sorry, Cyrus," she said, staring down. "But this is where it ends."


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Eighteen**

* * *

 _I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you_

 _Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,_

 _The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed._

–T. S. Eliot

* * *

I stared up at Jane. Both of us were motionless, as though the implausible horror of the moment had paralysed us.

A part of me couldn't believe what was happening. It was like one of those nightmares where someone close to you turns evil and comes after you, except it was _real_. And nightmares are always a lot worse in real life, because you can't wake up from them.

The desk lamp lay on the ground next to me, pointing upwards at an oblique angle. One half of Jane's face was lit harshly, while the other half lay in deep shadow. It made her seem _split_ , fractured down the middle, and I wondered if she was split the same way in her soul, or if she was just gathering herself to strike me down for good.

And as I thought that, a rush of fury ran through me. Fury at Jake, for bringing us to this point, at Jane for letting it happen, and even at myself, for not doing more to stop it when I could.

"Just do it," I whispered at first, then raised my voice. "Just _do_ it."

Jane's sword was half-raised, and her eyes were even wider than mine.

"Just _do_ it!" I shouted up at her, anger making me sound almost demonic. "If you're going to kill me, do it now and let it be _over_. If you really hate me, if I'm _really_ your enemy, prove it now and _KILL ME_."

I threw it all up into her face, my anger, my loss, my fear, in a dark challenge almost like a taunt, as I lay at her mercy. I wasn't thinking, wasn't strategising. The words just came, a verbalisation of my fury at her betrayal, the realisation of the true darkness that had enveloped us both. Yet Jane stood stock still, as though she'd turned herself to stone to avoid the final act.

"This is it," I growled, my head clearing from my repeated impacts with the furniture. " _Prove_ your loyalty to Jake. _Commit_ to what you've done. You were my friend, Jane Welles, and now you're standing over me with a sword. If you have any intention of finishing the job, do it now. End it. At least then we'll know who - _what_ you are."

She didn't raise or lower her weapon, but as I cast out those words, Jane took an involuntary step back. The tip of her blade floated a foot away from me, and I took the chance.

Because while I'd been shouting my head off, I'd _also_ been searching the rubble around me for a weapon, and now I found it. Without looking away from Jane's haunted expression, I wrapped my fingers around the long chunk of wood, and swung it at her as hard I could.

It hit her legs with an uncomfortable-sounding thud, and she staggered away, cursing in pain. I was on my feet an instant later, running for the bar. I snatched my dagger from the floor, even as Jane reoriented and followed me, but I had the lead.

Then I was at the bar, leaping onto it, tumbling over just in time, because as I dropped under cover a blast of shadow shot past overhead, smashing into the shelves. Shards of glass and torrents of liquor rained down as I patted the ground frantically, searching for the second stone, quickly, _quickly_ , Jane's footsteps pounded as she ran up, and I could feel her bubbling rage as she drew up her power. I started to panic, thinking that the thing had been kicked into some far corner, but then, miraculously, it appeared under my hand.

I snatched it up, and took the concealment stone from my pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jane appear overhead as she climbed the bar, but I ignored her, she couldn't stop me now. Obeying Olivia's instructions, I drew in a deep breath, cracked the two stones together like I was starting a fire, and—

They sparked with a bright green power that blinded me. I blinked, and I was lying on the floor of Jack's sitting room.

I was immediately surrounded by people pulling me to my feet, checking me for injuries, asking me what happened. Alice was at the front, patting me down.

"Are you okay?" she asked, grasping me by the shoulders. I nodded, shaky from the fight, out of breath from my sprint to the stone. "Did you get the locket?"

I dropped the runestones on the ground, and extracted the locket from my pocket, offering it to Alice. She reached out to take it, but then Jack was with us. "That's it!" he whispered, snatching it from my hand. He put it around his neck, his movements quick but somehow trancelike. Then he popped it open, and stared at the portrait within.

Meanwhile, Olivia and Kevin were hustling me over to the couch, asking me too many questions and answering them all.

"The stones worked perfectly," she said as I dropped onto the couch like a slightly ambulatory rock. "Just as I planned."

See, once we'd decided that I was the schmuck who had to sneak into our enemies' headquarters, we'd known that the chances of me getting back out on foot were sub-atomically small. Even with the concealment stone, the possibility of discovery had been too strong to ignore. Luckily, Olivia had long ago prepared a solution for just this kind of problem.

"I have two stones that are metamaterially bonded," she'd explained to me. "They're energically the same stone, so they're like two pieces of wire on an electrical circuit. Any power that flows through one flows through the other an instant later. They can teleport to one another. You follow?"

"No," I'd replied, but wisely.

"If I have one stone, and you have the other, I can use the connection to quanta-transmit you to my location," she explained. "But I'll need a signal so I know when to do it. All _you_ need to do is knock another runestone against this linked one, and the energy displacement caused by that will relay back to me. Then I'll know it's time to reel you in."

"I sound suspiciously like a doomed fish in this scenario," I'd complained.

And that had been my literal magic escape plan, though like all demigod plans it hadn't gone as simply as we'd supposed.

"Our only problem is that the two stones burned out," Olivia said now, sitting between Kevin and me on the couch. She held up her own stone - it was black, charred as though from fire. "And those were the only bonded ones I had."

I waved a hand, unable to care. "At least we got the locket."

Jack was still frozen on the spot, staring at said locket as though it was the key to his salvation. A few half-bloods were standing around him, perhaps waiting for his glorious moment of redemption, though just then I didn't feel too optimistic about that. Most of the other demigods were asleep, presumably exhausted from their hectic day of waiting and sitting, while a couple were out in the shop, ostensibly on guard.

Then, without a word, still clutching the locket, Jack turned and dashed out of the room, as though running from something terrifying. For a moment, Alice stared at the door as it swung shut, clearly unable to believe her awful luck, then followed him, and we heard her calling his name in a resigned tone. Then came the unmistakeable sound of a door slamming, as he retreated to his rooms. A moment later Alice shuffled back in, forlorn with disappointment.

"He just went into his study," she said, standing at the hearth, stating the obvious for her own benefit. "He didn't say anything at _all_."

"But he agreed!" Percy exclaimed, flapping his arms. "What the hell do we do _now_?"

"We wait," Annabeth said. She'd been one of the demigods standing in expectation, but now she threw herself into an armchair in disgust. "Tell us what happened, Cyrus."

Exhaustion from the last hour was setting in, but I didn't want to leave them hanging. In the briefest possible terms, I described my trip into enemy territory. The reactions to my fight with Jane were very mixed. Annabeth and Olivia wore fixed, neutral expressions, recognising an uncomfortable fact but not willing to express an opinion. Percy was sympathetic to my position in relation to Jane, and I remembered that he had some experience with his friends going rogue. Kevin and Alice were openly pained, the daughter of Apollo visibly on the verge of tears, which at first confused me, but then I recalled that she and Jane had been close, as devoted teacher and student of sword-fighting.

By the time I finished, the atmosphere in the room was deathly grim. This always seems to happen when I tell people a story. Maybe I should start taking it personal.

"Well," said Alice, sitting on the floor between the couch and the fire, "I hope Jack comes to his senses, because I really don't know what else we can do…"

"I know what _I_ can do," I said, dragging myself off the couch and heading for the door. "I can sleep. Wake me if the apocalypse arrives."

* * *

I felt like that guy in _Groundhog Day_.

For the second morning in a row, I awoke in a sleeping bag on the floor of Jack's control room to find Kevin surveying the security footage. Indeed, the moment I woke, I was struck by a disturbing sense of circularity, as though I was trapped in someone else's dream. It was like the previous day had never happened; or else that it had occurred only inside my deranged mind as a series of possibilities that transpired within my imagination, and so I was in the same place, at the same time, waiting for something to happen.

Or perhaps time is a dimension, a plane of reality like any other, and I was lost in it, like a man dropped into a desert with nothing but a blindfold and a broken compass.

Still, I considered, as I emerged from that halfway-moment between sleep and full wakefulness, truly all days begin the same way, yet not one is identical to any other.

After a few moments of reconciling myself to the grim reality that I was still in New Mexico, I looked out of my sleeping bag at Kevin. "Anything going on today?"

He shook his head, without looking around. "Just the same as yesterday. Jane's pacing around, wandering in and out of the tavern. The monsters attack every half-hour or so, with no real effect. Nothing else."

I sighed, and moved to lie on my back. Since I was comparing today to yesterday, I realised that the storm of emotions I'd felt about Jane being our enemy was just not there this morning. My ferocious confrontation with her had in some way cleansed me of the anger and pain. In a few dangerous, ruthless moments, I'd finally come to terms with Jane's betrayal, and unlike yesterday morning, I was no longer oppressed by it.

That didn't mean I was _happy_ with things. I'd just reached a sort of peace with the whole screwed-up reality. I still wanted Jane to come back, but if she didn't, I could deal with it. Nor, indeed, did I hate her. I hated the choices she was making, but nothing more. I could do nothing more or less for Jane than refuse to give up on her.

It was just like the way people needed to believe in the gods for them to survive. I needed to believe in Jane's better self, and it would survive.

(Or so I told myself. It was a pretty convincing delusion, if nothing else.)

My thoughts drifted again, moving back to the cheery topic of the war. Various questions shifted through my mind, forming and disappearing like shapes in the smoke from Jack's cigar.

One of those shapes stuck around, and I asked Kevin, my eyes still shut, "Hey, I just remembered. No-one is talking much about Tartarus spying on us. Shouldn't we be doing more about it?"

"What exactly _can_ we do about it?" he replied, in the exasperated tone of someone who's answered this question twenty times already. "We don't even know when he is or isn't spying, or how much he can hear. And we can't seal ourselves in a light chamber at the drop of a hat like the gods do. The only thing we can do is not kill ourselves stressing over it."

"Mm. And what about the Rheans? I thought they're causing us problems too? That's what Chiron said, anyway."

"Rhea isn't making a grab for world domination at the moment, as far as I know. Her lackeys have made a few attacks on half-bloods around the country but they don't have enough numbers to threaten us, because Tartarus controls most of the monsters."

"Wow, what a relief," I muttered.

"I wonder what Jake's doing," Kevin said, after a few moments' silence. "I doubt he's enjoying the sun in Hawaii. If he could stay here and torment us more, he would. He's working."

I sat up, and looked at him, as he rocked on his heels. "What are you thinking?" I asked, seeing that some key point of strategy was revolving in the son of Ares's brain.

"Just that this siege isn't the end of the show for Tartarus _or_ Jake." He turned to face me. "Even if we get out of here with the piece of darkness, he won't be done. He's got other plans ready. And what happens when the gods don't hand over the artefact? Remember Tartarus's threat?"

"He was just bluffing," I said, beginning to drag myself out of the sleeping bag. "Tartarus and Jake are both masters of the bluff. Hell, it's possible that this _is_ their last play. As far as I can tell, Tartarus can only continue to get stronger if he gets one of the pieces of darkness, and Jack's is the only one available."

Kevin grunted, a coded acknowledgement of my winning argument, and went back to surveying the video with the air of a general watching a suspiciously quiet battlefield.

I finished extricating myself from the sleeping bag, and sat on top of it, readying myself to face the day, the course of which was looking very uncertain. I wondered, after the bizarre events of the previous day, what I'd have to do today in order to survive to once more grumpily awake tomorrow.

I sighed, and searched for my socks. It's odd how the small things really annoy people. Here, for instance, I'd slept two nights in a row in my clothes. I was really wishing Jack would see sense today, just so I could get back to a normal bed and pyjamas.

"I wonder how we're going to get past our friends outside, once we're able to leave?" I thought aloud, as I pulled on the elusive socks.

Kevin, satisfied that the monsters were not concocting some dark, secret plan to teleport through the impenetrable barrier, turned and walked over.

"I was thinking about that," he said as he sat down. "It's going to be hard. We don't have far to go, but getting everyone on the same spot together, and making sure Olivia has enough time to gather her powers… There's a lot of problems with that."

I folded my arms, frowning. "Maybe Jack could give us some of that— You know that thing, where they shoot at the enemy while you run away?"

"Covering fire," Kevin provided, with a grin at my ignorance.

"Yeah, that," I said, unfazed. "And then if we sneak out the back, we could move around the monsters towards the ley line, get a head start?"

He nodded. "Yeah. But timing will be important. I had an idea—"

He started to tell me his idea, but I didn't hear it. I was distracted by the appearance, over his right shoulder, of a patch of rainbow-mist: the beginning of an incoming Iris-Message. I blinked up at it for a second, then jumped to my feet. Kevin blinked up at _me_ for a second, then followed my gaze.

The patch of mist grew until it was about three feet wide and tall. Then, like an image coming into focus in a camera's viewfinder, Chiron faded into view in the multicoloured cloud.

"Cyrus!" he greeted me, his voice a little flattened by the IM's acoustics.

"Chiron," I replied, my voice a little flattened by surprise.

"How are things there?" he asked. Behind him, I saw only bricks, presumably the back of the Big House, Chiron's favoured spot for private IM-ing.

"Okay, I guess," I said, not believing that this was just a check-up call.

"Jack turned out to be a tough man to negotiate with," Kevin said, on his feet now. "At first he refused to consider giving us the piece, but we managed— Cyrus managed to come up with a way to reach a deal."

We spent a couple of minutes bringing Chiron up to speed on our diplomatic efforts. Then, he asked the inevitable question, "What is Jack's state of mind at the moment?"

"He still hasn't come out of his room," Kevin said. "I checked with the other half-bloods half an hour ago and there was no sign of him. I asked Alice to let us know if there's a change, but so far…"

Chiron nodded, frowning. He said nothing for a moment, glaring at the ground, As I watched him, I was filled with the conviction that he'd rung to give _us_ news, and his dark expression didn't bode well. Something had changed.

"I know you're all trying your best," he said finally - ominous words. He met our eyes. "However, I can't emphasise enough how important it is that you get back here as soon as possible."

"The gods can wait, right? We can only work so fast!" Kevin said, annoyed, but I'd already grasped Chiron's cryptic statement.

"They can't," Chiron said sharply, though his anger wasn't with the son of Ares. "They are growing increasingly concerned about Tartarus's threat. They're convinced that the son of Chaos isn't bluffing."

He was careful and serious, like a doctor, the manner of someone preparing people for very, _very_ bad news.

"What's happened, Chiron?" I asked, bracing myself.

He sighed, shook his head, didn't respond for a moment. He rubbed his eyes, as though to clear his vision and so see the way out of a hopeless situation.

"Tartarus's forces are massing," he answered finally. "Since yesterday morning, legions of monsters and rogue ghosts, disguised by the Mist, have been congregating at six locations around Manhattan, Long Island, and Staten Island, two sites at each borough. When our scouts checked the areas an hour ago, they reported that a minimum of one hundred troops are at _each_ place."

"Jesus Christ," I breathed, glancing at Kevin, who stared at Chiron in horror.

"That's six hundred mustered in one _day_ ," the son of Ares murmured, his aura quivering in alarm. "If he keeps that going there'll be over a thousand by nightfall. How is he _doing_ this?"

"Jake Wilson is marshalling proceedings," the centaur said. For the first time, I registered that all the colour had drained from his face. He was as white as a ghost that's already been to hell and back. "We think they've been assembling these forces for a long time in the pit of Tartarus, and now they're being moved into position."

My thoughts chimed in resonant horror. This was exactly what I'd feared, that Jake was preparing an even worse threat while we were tied down here.

"And what's their play?" Kevin asked, lapsing into strategist mode, the only response he could make to the situation other than panic, sheer bloody panic.

Chiron disappeared from the frame as he bent down. When he reappeared, he was holding a tablet computer, which he consulted as he explained things.

"The Manhattan forces are clearly placed with a view to attacking the Empire State Building," he said. "I suspect that the Staten Island troops are going to be moved to the Manhattan bridges once the attack begins, to stop any supporting forces from reaching Olympus."

"Then why not send support _now_?" I asked, my astonishment translating itself into anger.

"The Long Island troops," Kevin reminded me. "What about them, Chiron?"

The centaur nodded. "That's the biggest problem for us. The two groups have blocked the roads from Long Island into New York. We can't transport any significant number of half-bloods to Manhattan without going through them. However, that's not the real issue."

"They're getting ready to attack camp," I breathed, full comprehension hitting me like an anvil.

"Exactly." Chiron met my eyes. "We can't risk sending anyone to Manhattan, because we don't know how many monsters Tartarus will have on Long Island by the time he strikes, and given the events of the last few battles, we don't even know how difficult it will be to kill them. Our first duty is to protect camp. We need everyone _here_."

The three of us were silent for a moment, all of us men standing over our graves. I couldn't believe the speed with which this strike had been prepared. It was like Tartarus and Jake had pulled back a curtain to reveal a war machine which they'd constructed under cover of darkness while acting as though they were only _beginning_ their preparations. We'd thought that there was some equilibrium in this war, that we had space to breathe. Suddenly, we'd looked up and realised that the proverbial sword of Damocles had, in total silence, been suspended over our heads.

With a chill, I understood that the only thing standing between us and utter destruction was our ability to improvise.

"We— there's a plan, right?" Kevin asked, stuttering for the first time in years. "We're not just sitting _waiting_ to be killed, r-right?"

Chiron looked uncomfortable. "That is why I need you back here," he said. "The camp counsellors are our most talented half-bloods, and without them, it's very difficult to organise a strong defence. We—"

"Then why didn't you tell us this _sooner_?" Kevin demanded, his aura flaring with anger, his fear igniting as he understood how bad the storm had just gotten. "We're here spinning our wheels while this is happening. This is _crazy_."

"The gods forbade me to do anything that would make your task more difficult," Chiron replied, his hard expression making it clear what he thought of this instruction. "I am only telling you now because you are close to completing your mission, but I must advise you not to tell the others until you finish the job."

"Jesus _Christ_ ," my friend spat, turning and walking away, muttering and gesturing.

"You _have_ a plan, though, right?" I asked Chiron quietly, while Kevin marched around the room, steaming.

"We do," the centaur nodded. "A haphazard one, but we have something. We're sending raiding parties to the monsters' camps to reduce their numbers, but I fear that any we destroy will be quickly replaced. Meanwhile, we're trying to organise our defences, but it's been a very long time since camp was attacked, and we're dealing with a great deal of minor problems."

"Okay. What about Olympus?"

"They believe they can hold out against the attack," Chiron replied, sounding a couple of shades more positive. "But they want to obtain one item, in order to guarantee their strength."

"The piece of darkness."

"Yes. Hades and Nyx have agreed to wield its power against Tartarus's forces, which will hugely increase their chances of survival. But the danger that Tartarus may yet regain the artefact terrifies them. That's why…"

"I get it," I nodded. Though I sympathised with Kevin's frustration, the reality was that the piece of darkness was an atom-bomb level item, and our role here was more important than anything. If Tartarus regained his power, it wouldn't matter how good our camp defences were. We'd be done.

"Still, the situation is not completely out of control," Chiron murmured. He lowered the tablet, shifting out of his role as camp leader, talking to me now as a friend. "We've faced similar odds before, and survived. We can do it, Cyrus, so long as you and your friends get back here by nightfall." He paused, glancing to one side, before adding, "And… we have a little good news."

"What's that?" I asked, totally unenthusiastic. I couldn't imagine anything that would make this situation seem better.

"We began border patrols at noon yesterday. Two demigods, along the main border, four-hour shifts. It's procedure, we've done it lots of times, but nothing usually happens. But this was so strange, so similar to when we found Thalia."

A chill went down my spine, though I didn't quite know why.

"It was seven-thirty this morning. I had just woken up. I'd fallen asleep at my desk, can you believe it? First time that's happened in decades. Anyway, one of the guards came rushing in, Alex from the Hecate cabin, you know him. He told me they'd found someone underneath the pine tree. My mind instantly went back to a similar morning, during wartime, eight years ago, when we found Thalia Grace at that tree on the hill. I rushed out with him, and I hurried up the hill." He paused. "Well, I'd been surprised when the daughter of Zeus turned up, but I was _amazed_ this time, when I saw who'd appeared."

My mouth was desert-dry. It was hard to speak, even unnecessary, but still I made myself ask the question. "Who was it?"

Chiron's gaze - so old, and yet so full of life, even as he heard the doors to death opening to welcome him and his camp - met mine, and in a quiet voice he told me the impossible.

"It was him. Lying there, injured, but alive. I don't know how it happened, but he'd made it, the way he always does. Nico made it. He found a way back."


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Nineteen**

* * *

 _"_ _I will kill the first man that moves," said Ahmed._

 _"_ _Then the second man that moves will kill_ you, _traitor!" shouted the Prince._

 _"_ _They'll have to move_ very _fast," said Carrot, drawing his sword._

 _"_ _Any volunteers to be the third man?" said Vimes. "Anyone?"_

—Terry Pratchett, 'Jingo'

* * *

I paced the control room, thinking ominous thoughts, while Kevin sat against the wall, his head buried in his arms.

It was just after noon. Jack hadn't reappeared. We'd helped ourselves to provisions from the pantry downstairs. Everyone was getting restless. Clarisse and Percy had even taken to banging on Jack's door, but there was no reply. Jane was continuing her assault on the defences. In truth, nothing had changed since this time yesterday, other than the demigods' mood, which was now worse than I'd ever seen it.

"This is awful," Kevin muttered.

By the time Chiron had ended the Iris-Message, I'd already grasped that it was crucial to withhold the details of Tartarus's new offensive from the others, but it had taken a few minutes' heated discussion for my friend to agree. The idea of keeping information from other half-bloods was bizarre to him, but I managed to convince him that if we told them now, they wouldn't wait for Jack to hand over the piece of darkness, they'd just head for camp. Much as I wanted to get out of New Mexico, I knew that we needed that damn artefact if we were going to survive the next week.

In the end, we told them Chiron had checked on our situation, and he was happy that we were being so persistent. I was itching to literally shout from the rooftops about Nico's return, but I withheld that, too, knowing it would only be a distraction.

Still, that news was the only thing keeping me from despondency, as I paced around the room like an overly cerebral caged animal. My frustration with our predicament was matched only by my joy that Nico had escaped. The two emotions held each other in check like psychic balancing weights.

I kept trying to figure out how the hell he'd managed it. I thought of Jake's last comment about Nico, which had made it pretty clear that he was imprisoned somewhere. Perhaps Jake's preoccupation with the minor task of assaulting and overthrowing Olympus had provided Nico with the opportunity to escape. The security around him could have been reduced to boost the numbers in New York.

But that didn't make a lot of sense. The last time I'd seen the son of Hades, he'd been a shadow-eyed zombie. How could he have regained his senses enough to single-handedly bust out of prison? I doubt Jake had been providing Nico with ambrosia, nectar and anti-brainwashing materials. Even assuming that he somehow had regained the use of his faculties, how had he gotten from his prison to the camp? He hadn't just stood up and shadow-travelled away, Jake would have had wards against that. And I remembered Nico telling me that to use his shadow powers, a piece of Stygian iron or crystal had to be on his person. I _really_ doubted that the son of Erebus had been stupid enough to leave Nico with anything like that.

Still, if there was anyone stubborn enough to force himself out of a brainwashed state, take advantage of a lapse of caution in his captors, muster inhuman strength from the depths of his soul, free himself of any bonds, take down anyone guarding him, steal back his belongings, bust his way out of Jake's stronghold, and still have enough strength left over to shadow-travel to the camp's borders, it was Nico di Angelo.

"I hope Nico gets his strength back soon," Kevin said, chiming in with my thoughts. "We could really do with his abilities at the moment. I mean, if we had someone to shadow-travel us right now, we wouldn't be _in_ this position."

"True," I nodded. I paced up and down the table of computers. "But we don't, so let's not wish ourselves to death. Alright, enough depression, Andrews, tell me what you think of all this."

Kevin sighed, tilting his head against the wall. He was silent for a moment, cogitating. Then he said, "It's complicated."

"It always is."

"Yeah," he conceded. "Look, I hadn't believed, before this morning, that Tartarus had enough firepower to really _threaten_ the gods. But it's obvious that isn't true. So that's surprising. But I was making unreasonable assumptions all along. Why _wouldn't_ Tartarus be secretly building up his forces? That's what _I'd_ do if I was planning to attack people as hugely powerful as the gods."

I reached the wall, turned, marched in the other direction. "Okay. So you're telling me that all of this makes strategic sense. Great. I can see why you're the military genius, Kevin."

"I'm thinking, alright, it takes time." He raised his hands in appeal. "The question here is not, how can Tartarus do this. The question is, why is he doing it _now_?"

"It's the same as any war, right?" I said, turning again. My sneakers squeaked on the bare wooden floor. "He's acted now because he has enough forces and power. It's not complicated."

"Probably," Kevin nodded, closing his eyes. "But I keep wondering why he's done it _after_ making the demand for the piece of darkness, but _before_ the deadline he set. He knew that the Olympians were never going to hand it over. Why didn't he just _attack_? That would have been more successful, more of a surprise if he hadn't given forewarning. By threatening us _first_ , he's given us more time to prepare."

I frowned. Once more the son of Ares had found the crucial point I was overlooking. "That's a good question."

"Isn't it," Kevin said drily. He rubbed his closed eyes, irritation rippling through his aura. "The demand for the piece of darkness and this move against the gods can't be isolated events. There _must_ be a link between them."

"I don't know," I said, shaking my head. I stopped at the main computer, slightly out of breath. I'd been pacing pretty darn fast.

Kevin was silent for a while, his mental gears turning so hard I could almost hear them creak. Eventually he looked up at me, with a distracted gaze. "Maybe he thinks he's going to spook the gods into handing over the piece of darkness. That could be it. Maybe he believes that if he shows up with a big enough army, if he _looks_ really dangerous, the gods will decide to make a deal with him, and he'll get his hands on his power."

I frowned down at the half-blood, unconvinced. "Perhaps. I don't know. It seems too much of a gamble for Tartarus. He doesn't really work in _ifs_ and _buts_."

"I don't know, I really think that's it." Kevin fell silent, lapsing back into contemplation. I turned to the computer. Just for something to do, I woke the screen, and accessed the video feed.

The usual scene appeared before me. The sun was shining. Jane was sitting in a wooden chair in the shade of the porch, surveying the street. The monsters were standing around, looking bored.

Bored nightmares. Now _there_ was a weird idea.

I stared at the screen. The monsters were so still, it looked like a photograph. It was all so surreal, a bad dream that wouldn't end, with my friend across the way and all these monsters under her command, just sitting there, baking in the sun, waiting for us to give in. In the bright sunlight the creatures seemed close to unthreatening, as though they were just grotesque mirages, born out of an interaction between my weary mind and the distorted, overheated air of the desert, mere illusions destined to be swept away by the cold wind of reality.

Then, as these misshapen ideas rambled through my mind like a carnival on wheels, a disturbing idea punched me in the stomach.

If Tartarus had so many troops that he could put six hundred monsters in New York in one day, why did he have only forty or fifty monsters at a time _here_ , where a piece of his sacred power lay within his grasp?

A sickening sensation spread through me as I recalled the scrawny telkhine I'd passed last night. I frowned, for the first time really _looking_ at the monsters outside - and as I did so, the pieces began to come together.

The monsters lurking outside Jack's wall were all second-rate. Most of them weren't that big, and I noticed that the claws and teeth of many of the empousa and telkhines were broken or blunted. I mean, sure, these guys could kill you as good as any other monster if you got too close, but they weren't exactly special forces. Not one of them looked like the kind of monster you'd place at such an important siege. I remembered the monsters Tartarus had used in Los Angeles. They'd all been big, powerful creatures, highly dangerous, but the things I saw on the computer screen were the underdeveloped cousins of those guys.

What _was_ this? Tartarus finally learned the location of one of his pieces of bound power, and yet he was sending teams of subpar lackeys? It made no sense.

Unless we were overlooking something important. Something huge.

And then the final piece fell into the puzzle. I remembered what Chiron had said, about the difficulty of arranging defences without the help of the counsellors.

Reality bit, and it bit with sharp fangs.

"Oh my god," I whispered.

"What is it?" I heard Kevin ask glumly.

Finally I understood our mistake. We'd been fooled again. The whole thing, from the moment Tartarus made that threat at Olympus, had been a manipulation, one massive strategic move that wasn't just meant to disrupt us.

It was going to destroy us.

I turned around, very slowly, a hair's-breadth from sheer panic. I looked at Kevin, who was eyeing me with concern.

"You're wrong about why he's making his move now," I said, my voice shaky. "He's not trying to blackmail the gods. He's getting ready to _finish_ us."

Kevin knew me well enough to see I wasn't being overdramatic. He went very pale. "What do you mean?"

"It all started with his ultimatum," I said, feeling incredibly stupid. How had we not _realised_ this _sooner_? How the hell had I not _seen_ it? "He didn't ask for the piece of darkness because he thought we would hand it over. He asked for it because he _knew_ that we'd _lead_ him to it."

He'd paled already, but now Kevin went as white as a fresh ghost. "Oh. Shit."

"Yeah," I nodded, lowering onto my hunkers. "He didn't know where the piece of darkness was because he's been asleep for so long, but he knew if he demanded it, the gods would send us to retrieve it. Jake set up a surveillance system with the rogue spirits to know when we turned up at the right location. Then we came here…"

"And we brought him straight _to_ the thing," Kevin murmured, putting his head in his hands. His aura dwindled lower than I'd ever seen it. "Jesus Christ. It's exactly like what he did with the Ritual of the Pit last year, but…"

"But we didn't expect him to pull the same trick again, and he knew it," I supplied. "We couldn't _imagine_ that he'd repeat himself. So he repeated himself."

We sat in a horror-filled silence, until Kevin, rubbing his hands over his face, said, "Okay. Okay. So we led him here, just like he wanted. But we can deal with that, right? I mean, we're holding out fine."

"We're _managing_ ," I said grimly. "In the face of _limited_ forces."

I watched Kevin, waiting for him to see it. It took a minute, but he got there. He shot to his feet, stood bolt upright, fists clenched and quivering.

"If it's all about getting the piece of darkness," he enunciated, staring at me, "why doesn't he have _all_ his troops _here_ to tear a way in?"

"Because he doesn't need the piece of darkness yet," I replied. "What he _does_ need is for us to be completely disorganised and unprepared when he strikes. So—"

"He's only sending enough monsters to keep us occupied here," Kevin murmured. "He's saving his forces for the main assault. Olympus almighty." He paused, then, "He's manipulated us, like puppets. First he makes us reveal this location. Then he ties us up, keeping us from getting back to camp, and crippling any hopes of mounting a proper defence there. From his point of view, this is the perfect scenario."

"It's just a chess move. They call it _pinning_ ," I said, sitting down as Kevin took over pacing duties. "He's trapped us here, out of the way, protecting the piece of darkness, while he moves around the board, taking down camp, assaulting Olympus. Then, once he's gained supremacy, he'll send his troops here and take the piece of darkness."

"And after all that, he'll destroy the gods," Kevin said in a hollow voice, marching the room in what looked suspiciously like a circle.

I thought back over the chain of logic, trying now to see if there was a hole in the son of Chaos's strategy. It seemed like he'd thought of everything, but there _was_ a flaw. No-one was infallible, even if they were an ancient shadow lord.

"He's got one problem," I glanced up at Kevin, whose misery seemed to deepen with every step he paced. "From this point onwards, the success of his plan rests on Jack refusing to surrender the artefact."

This didn't exactly impress him. "Okay," he said slowly, still pacing.

I got back on my feet, energy returning as I sensed the way out. "He thinks there's no chance of Jack giving in, so there's no way we get back to New York in time." I turned off the computer screen. "But he's wrong. He's the personification of utter darkness, he's always going to believe the worst of people. But that doesn't mean he's always correct."

Kevin stopped dead in the middle of the room, and looked at me.

"Okay," he repeated, more hopefully than before. "I see your point. But if that's going to work, we need to reach an agreement with Jack right _now_. We don't have time to wait for him."

I was already walking to the door. "You don't say."

* * *

Kevin always says I have no tact, but I don't know what he means. I mean, I introduced the demigods to the seriousness of our situation by marching into the living room, staring at them, and saying loudly, "Everyone listen up. We're in some serious shit."

Half-bloods may have ADHD, but the merest _suggestion_ of danger catches their attention faster than fresh hot dogs. A second after I spoke, eleven demigods around the room were staring at me, joined by four more when Kevin led in the minor god kids who'd been on guard in the shop.

"What is it, Cyrus?" Alice asked from a chair by the fire. Annabeth sat opposite her.

Once more I was the guy delivering the bad news. I couldn't help thinking, as I began recounting Chiron's Iris-Message, that the "Light" part of my _Lightbringer_ title was vastly inaccurate.

I explained the state of play in New York, drawing many exclamations of alarm. I ploughed on with the resolve of an embarrassed politician at a press conference, not taking any questions, and only briefly mentioning Nico's return, though when I did, I met Percy's eyes and saw relief equal to my own.

Then, with the morbid tone I reserve for truly dark situations, such as apocalypses or camp singalongs, I delivered my new comprehension of Tartarus's true plan. Kevin chimed in occasionally, attempting to lighten the mood with illustrative comments that served only to make things seem even more morbid.

As so often happens when I make a speech to half-bloods, they were dead silent when I finished. They stared at me as though I was making it all up for my own sick amusement, which will tell you what they thought of my sense of humour.

"So I think things are very clear," I said, rubbing my brow. "We need to get out of here within the next hour. We need to be at camp to start preparing for the assault—"

"But _how_?" Percy, on the floor near the back of the room, exclaimed. "Jack won't talk. We don't have anything else to offer him. Our only option is—"

"We could threaten him," Clarisse proffered from the couch, her tone professionally calm, as though suggesting a charity fundraiser. "Or we could skip the threats and just take it."

"Only Jack can open the desk, which is where he keeps it," Alice said, staring into the empty fireplace.

"Then we _force_ him to hand it over!" Bradley half-shouted, near me."We tell him we'll _kill_ him if we don't get it!"

"But we'll _never_ get it if we kill him," Annabeth interjected, always the one to puncture the faulty plan. "And he knows that. Threats won't work."

Leo Valdez was cross-legged in front of the fireplace. "Maybe I could, like, force the desk open. I could hotwire it or something."

"His desk isn't a car that you can rewire. You see the wards he has, the desk must be enchanted, too," Annabeth muttered. "No, we have one option, and one option _only_. We convince him to give it up."

"But _how_?" Bradley demanded, echoing Percy.

Edgy discussion took hold as the demigods, one by one, arrived at the edge of panic and peered over the brink in horror. They started arguing amongst themselves though a few, like Bradley, just shouted their suggestions at the air, as though to deafen the problem into submission with booming exclamations.

Kevin came over to me, brushing his hair back in agitation. "This is _ridiculous_."

Percy was arguing the issue of blackmailing with Clarisse, while Annabeth and Alice, two of the few calm half-bloods, were discussing something closely, but I couldn't hear them over the noise of Leo insisting to the son of Nike, Daniel, that he could cut open Jack's desk with a hacksaw.

Kevin was right, it was ridiculous, but it was also understandable. We were facing an impossible scenario, so implausible you couldn't make it up. It was like a domino chain that ended at the detonation button for a thermonuclear missile, and we were trying to keep the first domino from falling by sheer willpower. It was the sort of thing that could drive a person mad.

In the back of my mind I became aware of an approaching sound, but with the growing noise of the demigods I didn't realise it was, in fact, the sound of approaching footsteps until Jack came through the door.

He stopped just inside the doorway, and stared around the room, his worn face set with determination. My stomach lurched as I watched him. His ability to overcome his pride was the only thing that stood between us and disaster. I prayed that the demigods would notice him and shut up, especially Bradley who was now making the harebrained suggestion that we blackmail Jack by threatening to bring down the defences.

Alice was the first to realise that the guy everyone was shouting such nice things about was in the damn room. She didn't say anything, but her pointed stare at the doorway made people cop on pretty fast. Complete silence fell within about twenty seconds. We all eyed the son of Hephaestus with undisguised wariness, as though he'd walked in carrying a ticking bomb.

He stepped into the room, shut the door, and glared around, making eye contact with each of us in turn. It was only when he'd met everyone's individual gaze that he spoke.

"You don't need to do anything else," he said. I listened for the anger in his voice, but there was only flat neutrality. His aura was unreadable, for once the whites and blacks in unmoving balance. "You've done all you can to earn my trust. You could have stolen the piece of darkness two days ago, but you did not. You've shown me respect, and in turn, I must respect you."

Jack's gaze stopped roving, and now flicked between me and Alice.

"I've come to my final decision. No-one in the world can change it," he went on, his tone decisive, and not in a way that inspired optimism. "Things can't continue like this. I must honour my wife's memory."

He drew a slow, deep breath, and I think we all held ours in unison. For the long moment before Jack finished, I was absolutely certain that he was going to refuse to hand over the item of power. Looking at his aura, I sensed pure resolution, and I couldn't believe that he'd reached such peace by surrendering his wife's last gift.

But—

"I'll give you the piece of darkness," he said. "Right now. And I'll cover your escape to the ley line."

I stared at him.

No-one spoke for a few seconds. I didn't need to look at the others to know they'd been certain of Jack's belligerence. The disbelief that hung in the air was so complete, it was a few hairs away from rejection.

Then Alice jumped from the armchair, and hurried toward Jack.

" _Thank_ _you_ ," she said, throwing her arms around him. He blinked, and patted her shoulder awkwardly, something like a smile forming on his face. The rest of the demigods finally reacted.

"Yeah, thanks, Jack," Bradley muttered, red-faced.

"You've saved us all, man," Kevin said, looking hugely relieved.

"Yeah, Jack!" Percy shouted, jumping up. " _Awesome_ , man!"

A few cheers broke out, somewhat strangled by the demigods' amazement. It was anticlimactic, like coming to the saloon at high noon to find that your sworn enemy has written a peace treaty. Jack stood there, nodding, smiling a little, stroking his beard. Then, he raised a hand for silence.

"I'll bring Alice up to my study, and give her what you need," he told us. "The rest of you get ready to leave. I'll let you out by the back door. There's a porthole in the wall upstairs, and I'll cover your retreat as best I can." He paused, a flash of indecipherable emotion passing over his face, quivering through his aura, then he added, "The enchantments in my defences will only last for two more days. Do me a favour. On your way out, make it clear to your friends that you've got the piece of darkness. I don't need them hanging around."

"No problem with that," Alice said, smiling.

"Alright," he said, gruffly but kindly, turning to the door. "Let's move."


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty**

* * *

 _"_ _Sorry," he said. "Nerves. I, uh… Harry, I'm sorry I ran away like that."_

 _"_ _Took cover," I provided. "In the action business, when you don't want to say you ran like a mouse, you call it 'taking cover'. It's more heroic."_

 _"_ _Right," Butters said, flushing. "I took cover."_

 _"_ _It's fun, taking cover," I said. "I take cover all the time."_

–Jim Butcher, 'Dead Beat'

* * *

For the second time in twenty-four hours, the secret panel in the bronze wall slid open.

"Alright," Jack whispered. "It's clear. Get out of here."

We slipped out without a word. We'd already said our goodbyes to the half-blood who might have just won us the war.

True to his word, Jack had given Alice the piece of darkness while we'd prepared for the dash to the ley line. Even as we got ready to escape, we were getting over our disbelief that Jack had just given in.

"I thought we were going to be stuck here till Tartarus blew the world up," Kevin said, as he strapped on his armour. "I can't believe he just came around."

I shrugged, as I checked my shoelaces. (Hey, the last thing you need when you're outrunning a horde of monsters is to trip over your _shoelaces_.) "Not everything has to be an epic struggle. Sometimes people just see reason."

A few minutes after that, Jack and Alice had returned, and Annabeth had formally taken command of the remainder of the mission.

"Listen up, everyone." She stood on the couch to glare around the room. "We need to move fast and move together, otherwise we're going to get separated, and I don't want _anyone_ getting left behind, understand? Olivia will transport us to camp, but we need to be within feet of each other for that to happen. We're heading for the end of the street, where she'll tap into the ley line."

"And how are we getting there? I don't think shadow-girl out there will just let us stroll over the horizon," Clarisse asked, with cheerful diplomacy.

"We avoid fighting the monsters as much as possible," Annabeth replied. "We can't get dragged into conflict or we'll be overrun like last time. We move forward, and we don't stop. Olivia has to save her powers for the jump, and she doesn't have concealment stones for everyone, so we have to keep it simple and run like Hades."

We eyed her with uncomfortable doubt, exchanging uneasy glances with one another. This didn't sound very Annabeth-like.

"But you _have_ a plan, right?" Percy said, beside me.

"Well, _duh_ ," the daughter of Athena rolled her eyes, drawing murmurs of relief. "Our first tool is timing. We'll go out the back exit just after Jane throws the next wave of monsters into the wards. For about three minutes, there'll be just a handful of monsters out there. We'll use that window, sneak around the house and make a break for the ley line. I want our best fighters front and back to clear the way and to protect our retreat. Jack will cover us from here."

Jack stood at the door to the shop. "I have some smoke grenades, and a _lot_ of bronze ammunition," he offered. "I'll keep them occupied."

"When we reach the ley line, get hold of each other," Annabeth went on. "We need to be in physical contact for the jump. Alice, focus on your foresight, give us warnings. Cyrus, watch out for any tricks. I want everyone to protect Olivia at all costs. Without her, _no-one_ is getting home." She paused, and raised her eyebrows. "Questions? None? Good. Let's go."

Moments later, Jack and Annabeth led us into the study. Mercifully he had already moved the bookcase. Our professional, military retreat wouldn't seem so sophisticated if we had to wait for him to drag the furniture around again.

The son of Hephaestus stood in front of the back door. "I wish you all the best of luck, though I'm not going to help you after this. That's not something I could ever bring myself to do, but know that if you're in these parts again, come to me and I'll give you a safe place for a couple of days."

Alice stepped forward, and held out her hand. She smiled with a purity that was humbling. "Thank you, Jack. I hope I see you again some day."

Jack looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled back, and shook her hand. "You too, Alice," he murmured. He seemed standoffish, but the melancholy ripple of gold in his aura stood out from the usual black and white. He wasn't someone who opened his heart, but Alice had picked the lock.

He dropped her hand, and took a long breath, as though letting go of something. The gold flickered, and spread through his aura like a purifying solution through muddy water. He turned, and typed the passcode into the number pad.

"The monsters will make the assault in about sixty seconds," Jack said, glancing over his shoulder. One finger hovered over the _open_ button. "After they've broken against the wall, I'll throw down smoke grenades. When you hear the pop, get moving." He reflected for a moment, and I thought he was going to tell us something else, but he just said, "Good luck."

He pressed the button, and the door panel slid open. Annabeth, Alice and Percy led the way, while Clarisse, Kevin and the son of Nike formed the rear guard. The rest of us made a loose formation between them.

We slipped outside with commando-like stealth. The door slid shut. No going back now.

We stood still in Jack's yard, not even looking at each other, only listening for our signal. For what felt like an eon, there was only silence, as though we were alone in this ghost town. As the seconds stretched past, it felt like a strange dream, where everything had already ended and only we remained, wandering the earth, lost warriors in search of a battle. The desert heat was intense, bearing down on us all.

And then came the signal to charge. The monsters on the other side of the house let out a mismatched set of battle cries as they threw themselves at the wall. Like a locust wind they blew into the defences, and there came a rattle and hum as the defensive wall shook and the wards discharged with violent force.

One heartbeat, two, then Jack roared, sounding more like a newly-woken dragon than a weary half-blood, "BURN IN HELL, PIT SCUM!" A sharp, loud popping noise rang out, like a massive piece of bubble wrap being burst by a bored god, and Annabeth hissed, "Let's go, go, _go_!" "Make like crazy bank robbers!" Alice whispered, confusingly.

With more coordination than I'd ever seen in any group of half-bloods, we took off, running around the house, heading for the street. The impenetrable peace of a moment ago was a distant memory, filled now with high-pitched shrieks of dying monsters, pounding footsteps, popping sounds that could only be gunshots, and urgent cries from Percy at the front and Clarisse at the back.

We swung onto the street in time to see Jack hurl another grenade from his second-floor porthole. The area in front of his house was filled with smoke, obscuring most of the remaining monsters. Only a few telkhines were outside the growing grey cloud, and it took about half a second for them to see us, even as we turned and started dashing down the street.

"Keep moving!" Annabeth yelled, as a few half-bloods glanced back at the monsters. "Don't engage them unless they're about to cut your head off!"

We kept going, heading up the street for the ley line. Behind us, Clarisse and Kevin shouted encouragement like army colonels, drowning out the chilling screams the telkhines let out to alert their fellow pit scum, as Jack so aptly called them. Gunshots were popping with regularity behind us, as he laid down the covering fire.

Still we pushed on, and the ley line seemed so far away now, as the monsters started bounding after us like bats out of hell. A couple of demigods were already flagging under the heat and the pressure, like Bradley next to me, but they kept up, because there was no choice. Next to me, Olivia ran with her head down, ignoring everything. Alice and Percy were yelling out triumphant taunts, just to make it real clear that we were getting away with the crown jewels.

The empty shops and buildings flitted past, and the end of the street was so damn close. The monsters were at least ten feet away, and though it sounded like they were gaining I didn't dare look back.

And then we were at the end of the street, right where we'd arrived.

"Get hold of each other!" Annabeth shouted, grabbing Percy's hand. " _Quickly_!"

Stumbling to a halt, chests heaving, we each snatched the hand or the shoulder of whoever was closest, forming a rough semicircle, Olivia at its centre. We got linked up within a few seconds, the last links in the chain forming as Bradley took Daniel's wrist, who grasped Kevin's shoulder, who—

Most of us had our backs to the monsters, but Percy, at the top of the chain, was staring down the street in horror. " _Clarisse_!" he yelled.

I looked over my shoulder.

Clarisse had stopped about four metres back. She'd been bitten in the leg, and blood was dripping thickly from the wound. Three monsters were around her, snapping at the demigod, and she was keeping them back barely, destroying one in a single blow as we watched, but many more were racing up the street. In a few seconds they'd overwhelm her, and with her injury she couldn't run fast enough to reach us.

But Percy blurred past, sprinting down the street, faster than I'd ever seen him. His sword seemed to just _appear_ in his hands as he reached Clarisse, and he decapitated the two monsters in an eye-blink. With an obvious wince, but without hesitation, he took up the muscly daughter of Ares in a fireman's carry and started running back, his steps laboured now. New monsters were feet behind him, and I could see Jane hurtling up the street, but the stark sunlight was dampening her powers, wilting her aura.

"Be ready, Olivia," Annabeth murmured, staring at Percy, her own aura trembling. "Any second."

Percy was ten, eight feet away, but a dracaena was behind him and it threw itself into the air, teeth bared at the son of Poseidon's throat—

Then a gunshot rang out, and the monster exploded. Percy was with us, grabbing Kevin's shoulder, and a millisecond later I felt Olivia's power settle over us, then twist in a rough embrace— and we vanished down the ley lines, snatched away from Tartarus's creatures less than seconds before they could descend on us.

But for the briefest of moments, I looked back at the ghost town and once again felt that undercurrent of malevolence, except now it hummed through the air, souring the atmosphere and weighing down on us. It had been growing stronger and stronger as we'd neared the ley line, but only now did I really notice it. I never told anyone afterwards, but it was one of the most disturbing things I ever experienced, because it felt like some dark spirit, not an inhabitant but a _manifestation_ of the town, was reaching out a crooked hand, trying to drag us back into the arms of the monsters. And in the final instant before Olivia spirited us away, I thought I caught a glimpse of a crooked figure outside one of those boarded-up shops, a misshapen form wearing the tattered garb of an old cowboy, shaking a fist at us and screaming in rage.

* * *

We rematerialised in front of the Big House.

"—contact them," I heard Chiron's voice, as I fell to my knees, my vision blurry. I stared around blearily. The centaur was in front of us, on the porch, talking to a Hermes kid.

"There they are!" he exclaimed. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes. Percy staggered but didn't collapse, and lowered Clarisse to the ground with admirable care. She was barely conscious now, and Chiron saw that, and her wound, and even with my blurry vision I could see his face going white.

"Get me Owen and Michelle from the Apollo cabin, right now," he ordered the Hermes kid, sounding almost scared. "Get them here _now_. _Go_!"

The guy took off, and Chiron came down the steps, withdrawing a leather pouch from somewhere as he reached Clarisse. He dug into it, and took out some crumbly squares of ambrosia and a flask of nectar. He bent down, gesturing at Percy to step back. He crumbled a little ambrosia into Clarisse's half-open mouth, then dripped in some nectar. Automatically she swallowed, and for a few tense moments Chiron hovered over her, all of us watching. My mind was clearing now after the jump, and I wondered what he saw about her injury that worried him so much.

Finally, the daughter of Ares's eyes flickered shut, and she breathed the deep breaths of healing sleep. Only then did Chiron let out a sigh, and look at the rest of us.

"You made it," he murmured, scanning us. Several demigods had fallen to their knees like me, while a couple others were just passed out on the ground, like Olivia next to me. I debated getting up, but the mere idea was painful. That quanta transmission had been rough. It felt like Olivia, in her drained state, had been forced to draw on us for energy. I hadn't felt this tired since Alcatraz.

Somehow, but unsurprisingly, Alice was still upright. She staggered forward, and held out a box - _the_ box - to Chiron, who eyed her for a moment before taking it. "Jack gave you this?"

"Yes," Alice replied. She glanced at us sidelong. "He took some convincing. And he said he won't help us again after this."

Chiron turned the box over and over in his hand. I'd expected him to be relieved, but he looked grim. "If we're lucky, this is all we'll need."

I didn't have time to reflect on the irrationality of mentioning _luck_ when the armies of darkness had taken up residence in our front yard, because just then the Apollo medics reached us. They swung into action, dropping massive first aid kits on the ground and examining each of us in turn, Owen taking one side of our scattered group, Michelle the other.

I made the great progression from kneeling to sitting, and waited for a medic to poke at me. I was basically fine, but I was shaken by how nearly we'd been overtaken. Percy had managed to save the day, but if he'd been a second slower, or if Jack had been a little less alert, the whole damn mission would have been for nothing.

There was something else bothering me, too, but I took a few moments to realise what. It was only as Owen reached Olivia that I understood.

A grim foreboding was creeping through me, an unspecific yet soul-deep awareness that something was about to turn bad. Really bad. A rational person would dismiss this as superstition, or as psychological fallout from the stress of the mission, but I knew myself better than that. I'd had an identical sensation twice before: the moment before I was first introduced to the world of the gods, and the moment Nico came to deliver Hades's Shadow Games invitation.

I felt that now, that certainty that we stood on a dark threshold. It wasn't foresight, I didn't know what was going to happen. But I knew for certain that—

"Cyrus? Cyrus!" I became aware of Owen worriedly waving his hand at me.

"Sorry, man," I muttered, nodding to assure him that I hadn't left my marbles in New Mexico. "I think I'm okay. I'm okay. Do I _look_ okay?"

The son of Apollo checked me for wounds, physical or otherwise. I'd seen him around camp, but we hadn't spoken since I'd gotten back from Olympus Library with Annabeth and Jane. He'd changed a lot since then. His blue eyes had lost their innocent calm, and his aura had darkened. Still feeling that foreboding, I wondered what terrible injuries and deaths he'd had to examine in the last few months.

"Yeah, you're okay," he said, after passing a hand around me in a mystical manner - reading my aura. "Chill here for a few minutes, get your strength back, then be ready to move soon. I don't think Chiron's wasting any time on reunions."

The medics cleared most of us a few minutes later. They brought Clarisse to the infirmary, while Chiron carried in Olivia. A couple half-bloods who'd been hurt in Jake's first attack were also brought up, but the rest of us were ready for duty - and duty started now.

Chiron stood on the porch in front of us. By now we were recovered, and sat on the grass, waiting for the next disaster. The centaur looked down at us, his expression neutral.

"In normal conditions, I would encourage you all to take several hours' rest," he said, "but these are anything _but_ normal conditions. I believe we'll face a direct attack at midnight. Most of you are counsellors, and you need to marshall your cabins to the task of preparing our defences."

"What's our situation at the moment?" Annabeth asked, the most alert of us all.

"Very little has changed since my Iris-Message earlier," Chiron replied, glancing over at Half-Blood Hill, in case the monsters had sneaked in while he wasn't watching. "I sent out raiding parties, but the monsters are very alert. It seems that Jake warned them of our tactics. We knocked out a few larger monsters, some Hyperboreans and a Hydra, but the number of troops is still increasing. There are at least two hundred monsters at both Long Island locations. The situation in Manhattan is even worse. Tartarus's forces have reached similar numbers, but we can't get anyone onto the island to defend the Empire State Building."

He started pacing the porch. "We are are on something of a cliff-edge at the moment, but I believe we can pull through. We've been taken by surprise, but if we work fast in the next few hours we should easily repel the first attack. After that, we'll have time to consolidate our defences and settle in to face a siege, should things come to that. Remember, Tartarus can only overrun us if he has first taken Olympus, which is, of course, incredibly unlikely."

Kevin was sitting with me now, and we exchanged alarmed glances. "How exactly would _that_ work?" Alice asked warily.

"A great deal of the power that sustains the camp borders comes from Olympus," Chiron explained, still pacing. "If the gods are turned out of their position of power, the camp borders will lose that source of energy, and they'll begin to fail."

"But what— what about the Golden Fleece?" Percy demanded. "Doesn't _that_ sustain the borders?"

"Complex wards like the ones that protect this place aren't maintained by _one_ energy source. The Fleece and Thalia's tree are important, but the basis of the borders is the energy supply from Olympus. Remember, when the tree was poisoned, the borders weakened _slowly_ , but if something happens to the gods on Olympus, the barriers between us and the outside world will start to _shrink_. Eventually, and I don't know how long it will take, they can contract no further, and they'll vanish."

The silence that followed those words was like the silence in the Underworld: still, cool and all-consuming.

"But that, as I said, is _incredibly_ unlikely," Chiron went on, his cheerful tone only a _little_ forced. "That can only happen if Tartarus were to become more powerful than the elder gods, but without a piece of darkness it is impossible for him to obtain such strength. Thanks to you, all three fragments of his power are beyond his reach, and so the balance of power remains stable. The sole danger that we face is the monsters putting so much pressure on the borders that they overwhelm the defensive wards, but as long as we maintain a strong defence, that is an even _more_ remote possibility."

He came to a stop, and faced us squarely. "Now, let's get to that strong defence. I have jobs for you all. Leo, I need you to lead the Hephaestus cabin in preparing our ballistic weaponry. We don't have many apparatuses but—"

" _Ballistics_?" Leo exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Man, I'm there! Where do I sign up?"

"Good," Chiron nodded, smiling, but I could see the cracks. "Head straight to your cabin. Bradley, I need you to help the Demeter half-bloods to set up traps on the other side of the hill…"

And so it went on, until every half-blood had been given work according to their skills. One by one, they accepted their mission and hurried into camp. Finally, it was just me and Kevin. Chiron looked at us, as though considering a couple of pointless pawns on a busy chessboard.

"This is unconventional," he muttered, with a real smile this time. Then he said, "Kevin, I want you to step in as head counsellor for your cabin."

I stared at Kevin. He stared at Chiron. The centaur looked amused.

"Um," my friend said, getting up from the grass with an embarrassed air, as though sitting on the ground was unbecoming of an Ares leader. "You sure about that?"

"I wouldn't even mention it if I weren't," Chiron replied. "You've shown a lot of courage in the last few months. Clarisse is too badly injured to perform her duties, and I think your experience in New Mexico has made you as ready as you will ever be. Now, I need you to see if your cabin has any land-mines left—"

I stared in even _more_ astonishment than before at this one, but Kevin nodded as though Chiron had asked if they had enough orange juice. Honestly. _Demigods_.

"—and set about installing them on the far side of the hill. After that, focus on making sure that everyone has adequate weaponry and armour."

"Okay," my friend said. Then, with only a brief glance down at me, he hurried into camp.

I wasn't really surprised to be the last one sitting - but I preferred to be the last one standing, so I got to my feet. Chiron came down the porch steps.

"I should probably help the Hermes cabin set up those communication stations, huh?" I asked.

Chiron shook his head, and put a hand on my shoulder. "No," he murmured. "Right now, you should just rest. You're going to be our main lookout, come sunset."

"Uh. Your _what_?"

"The Dionysus kids are constructing two siege towers right now. Their main function is giving the Apollo archers a vantage point, but I want you and a couple of others on top of them from the moment the sun goes down until the first battle ends. I want your pure sight fully engaged for the whole time, watching for any trickery. We both know Tartarus doesn't play fair, and there's only one person in this camp, maybe in this _world_ , who can see through all of his illusions."

He looked at me, and my first hope - that he was giving me a minor task to keep me out of trouble - was crushed by the seriousness of his gaze. I swallowed, as I understood the responsibility Chiron was handing me. It wasn't like Los Angeles, when Annabeth had put me in a small, advisory role. Here, now, I was taking up a crucial part in the task of surviving a _true_ apocalyptic battle.

"Sure," I said, somehow finding it in myself to smile. "After all, what's the point of pure sight if you don't use it in every apocalypse you can find?"

Chiron gave a worn but pure smile in reply. "Good. In the meantime, perhaps you would like to see Nico?"

The shift in topic gave me emotional whiplash. For a second I just blinked at Chiron. Hell, I hadn't even _thought_ of the son of Hades since I'd left Jack's sitting room. "Is he alright? Can he talk?"

"He's asleep in the infirmary. He hasn't woken since we found him. I think his body is in some kind of restorative coma. That happens with Big Three half-bloods. If you want to sit with him, while you're waiting for nightfall…"

I felt relieved, and grateful. Any opportunity for peace and reflection was welcome right now - hell, it was _necessary,_ for me to use my sight properly later. "Okay. Thanks, Chiron."

He nodded, and turned to walk away. A thought flicked through my mind, that I'd forgotten something important, something I needed to tell him. Instinctively, I said, "Wait, Chiron."

He looked over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised. I frowned, as that thought disappeared over the horizon and my mind went blank. Whatever I'd forgotten wouldn't come back to me. I shook my head. "Sorry. Nothing."

A look of mild concern passed over Chiron's face, but he nodded and turned away. "See you later."

* * *

I headed for the infirmary. I felt bad that I wasn't doing more to help, but I knew there wasn't much I _could_ do. The most useful contribution I could make was to find a quiet place and organise my mind. Then I'd be able to apply my pure sight as well as I could when the time came.

Half the infirmary beds were filled with sleeping demigods. Clarisse lay near the door, looking amazingly unthreatening in sleep. A few half-bloods from the Los Angeles battle were here, along with the injured from New Mexico. At the back of the room, a curtain was drawn around a corner, hiding the bed behind it.

I tiptoed across the room, towards the back. I passed Olivia, and paused to glance over her. She wasn't physically injured, but she was exhausted from drawing on her powers so much. Her aura had dwindled to a faint glow around her body, almost unnoticeable. There was no way she'd be ready for action by tonight.

I moved on, reaching the back curtain and slipping through it.

Nico lay in the bed before me, looking young and calm in sleep. He was on his side, facing me. There was a chair next to the bed, and I sat down in self-conscious silence.

His aura was also worn and thin, like an ancient garment, but it was even worse than Olivia's. Before, Nico's aura would surround him in a storm-cloud of intimidating power, palpable even without pure sight, but now it was practically invisible. It was kind of shocking. The son of Hades had legendary stamina, built up by years of training and battle, and as a child of the Big Three, his power reserves were deeper than any other living demigod, Percy his only equal.

But while his condition was shocking, it also made sense. I'd already guessed that it would take the full reserves of someone as strong as Nico to escape from Jake and Tartarus's clutches, especially after a year of being imprisoned, a year of his mind being twisted and his will bent.

And with some shock at the sheer amount of time, I realised that it was almost a year to the day since our trip to the Edge of the West.

Other than the aura, he didn't look very different. A little older, a little more worn, but somehow I sensed that he retained the indomitable will that made him who he was. He was hurt, but he was still Nico. And as I looked at his aura, I sensed a great, weighing exhaustion, not merely tiredness but the void where his strength used to be, yet I felt under that weariness an iron determination which was untouchable by anything, even death. It was like a cliff face cast from steel, forming the basis of Nico's power. If anything, it seemed stronger, more solid, than when I'd last seen him.

I sat back, a reflective mood coming over me. Seeing Nico restored like this, I felt relief, but it went beyond gratefulness into an odd sense of security that was the opposite to my earlier foreboding. I felt sure that somehow, even if my foreboding was also true, everything was going to be all right. It took a moment to understand where this emotion was coming from, but finally I realised.

Nico was the only half-blood who I had full confidence in. Perhaps it was because he was the first demigod I'd befriended, or maybe it was because he'd never let me down. The why didn't matter, because I knew I was sitting next to the one person in camp who I'd never seen make a serious mistake.

But how could that be? It wasn't like he was some enchanted demigod whose path always smoothed before him. Hell, it was anything but. He'd gone through years of struggle just to accept the dark parts of his nature. He hadn't learned how to be a demigod at camp. For a long time, he'd been mostly alone. Sure, Percy had helped him, but Nico had spent a lot of time with no real guide, no-one to rely on, and no-one to save him, except himself. That kind of experience would sure teach you to make every decision count. That experience, more than anything, would teach you to _survive_.

Not for the first time, I wondered how the last year would have gone, if Nico had escaped with Alice and me. The debacle with the Ritual of the Pit surely would have gone differently. A lot of my mistakes might have been avoided, if Nico had been there to point a warning finger. I wouldn't have left camp, that was for sure. There was no way that Tartarus would have gained such a strong foothold. We wouldn't have been backed into a corner, with no options other than fighting for our lives and praying the gods survived the night.

But perhaps I was investing too much belief in Nico's abilities. He was _one_ guy. Could a lone half-blood truly make such a great difference? Just because he was experienced didn't mean he was invincible. One person can't turn back a tsunami.

But that was all the past, conjecture, and pointless imaginings. The important thing was that he was back, and if I knew Nico at all, he'd be out of that bed a lot sooner than anyone imagined.

I folded my arms, and sighed. My thoughts turned to the question that was weighing down on the whole of camp like a block of atmospheric pressure. What was going to happen next?

Even if we managed to defeat Tartarus's armies, the end of the war wasn't in sight. Unless the son of Chaos confronted the gods without a piece of darkness in his wizened claw and thus got himself destroyed, I didn't see any way that the war could be stopped in the near future. Right now, we just needed to get ourselves away from the brink of the abyss, but that was a matter of recovering lost ground. What came after? Tartarus wasn't going to just slink back to the slimy pit that he'd crawled out of. He was on the warpath.

And then there was the problem of Jake Wilson. He was close by, I knew it in my soul. Probably he was here on Long Island, preparing the assault on his old home. For him, this was what everything came down to. Overrunning camp. Destroying the gods. The culmination of all his work, all his gathering of dark power. It was this, the final wreaking of his revenge - the _avenging_ , as he saw it, of his mother's unlawful death. What happened if we snatched away his victory at the last moment? I doubted he'd obligingly go insane and jump off a bridge. He'd never give up.

On the other hand, if he somehow won this battle, what would follow _then_? Just as our potential victory over Tartarus couldn't be absolute, neither would our potential defeat be the end. There was no _way_ that we would be all wiped out by a single blow, no matter how well-planned it was. The gods and their offspring had held their place for thousands of years, they couldn't be swept away in a single night, like leaves at the end of autumn.

It all came down to the same uncertainty, the danger posed in the _prontos profiteia: True power, the darkness will gain/And the gods shall face eternal pain._ I still didn't know if those lines were a warning, a caution against a possible disaster, or a proclamation of certain doom.

I was drowsy by now, exhaustion from the last few days coming out from behind the wall of adrenaline. My chin nodded onto my chest, preparatory to the slide into a nap. I thought of my parents. Hestia had sworn to look after them, and that restrained me from IM-ing them. Any news would only worry them, and make me more conscious of the imminent danger than I really needed to be. I had faith in Hestia's protection, though admittedly she was the _only_ god I had faith in.

Somehow, too, I had the instinct that Hestia was in more control of things than any other Olympian. With her insight into the future, and her unshakeable calm, she was better-equipped to face this situation than possibly anyone else. But _how_ much control she had, I didn't know.

And while I didn't understand the prophecy, while I didn't know what hell lay in store for us all, I was certain that the more drastic a threat Tartarus became, the nearer I drew to the moment when I had to _unleash the hidden light_. With every hour, with every darkening of the shadows, the closer I came to my destiny.

I just hoped that I'd recognise it when it arrived.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-One**

* * *

 _Martin Hart: Didn't you tell me one time, at dinner, once, maybe, about… you used to make up stories about the stars?_

 _Rust Cohle: Yeah, that was— that was in Alaska, under the night skies._

 _Martin: Yeah, you used to lay there and look up at the stars…_

 _Rust: Remember, I never watched a TV until I was 17 so there wasn't much to fuckin' do up there besides walk around and explore._

 _Martin: And… and look up at the stars and make up stories. Like what?_

 _Rust: I tell you, Marty, I've been up in that room, lookin' out those windows every night here and just thinking, it's just one story. The oldest._

 _Martin: What's that?_

 _Rust: Light versus dark._

 _Martin: Well, I know we ain't in Alaska, but it appears to me that the dark has a lot more territory._

 _Rust: Yeah. You're right about that._

–'True Detective'

* * *

"Wise Girl, this is Hawkeye and Cassandra, we're in position, over."

"Roger that, Hawkeye. Yoda is in position on ground level. Me and Kasparov are on the way."

I shared an amused glance with Alice.

"W _ho_ picked the nicknames?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure. Probably Percy." I adjusted my earpiece, and looked around me. "Well, at least we have a good view of the apocalypse."

Alice and I were atop one of the two wooden towers that stood atop Half-Blood Hill. Both constructions, built by the Hephaestus and Dionysus kids, were four stories tall and quite wobbly. Even without any fear of heights, I felt woozy looking at the ground.

Both towers were designed the same, with three levels for concealed archers, enclosed by wooden panels for protection, and a top level for watching the battle, with no ceiling and only waist-high wooden ledges. I couldn't help thinking that the lookouts deserved better protection from the armies of darkness, but it wasn't like I could do anything about it. Alice and I were on the right-hand tower, and our task was simple: watch everything. Annabeth and Zack were about to take up their positions on the other tower, which stood ten metres to our left.

A loud detonation, down by the road that ran past camp, made me jump. Then Kevin's voice said in my earpiece, "Welcome packages are set. Overwatch, signal me for detonation at any time."

I adjusted my earpiece, still wincing from the explosion. All the cabin counsellors, along with any who Chiron and Annabeth considered "strategic figures", had been given communications headsets. Nothing special, just a basic device with microphone and earphone. The unique characteristic was that every one was brushed with celestial bronze to block any potential interceptions.

"It's so quiet out there," Alice muttered, leaning on the low wooden wall. I was _really_ not happy about our lack of overhead protection. Leo had unconvincingly reassured me that the monsters wouldn't be launching aerial attacks, but Murphy always has his way with me. "So quiet. They must be nearly here."

I nodded. There was a great contrast between the scene in front of us and the scene behind us. Beyond camp borders, all was calm. Night had fallen twenty minutes ago. Darkness was around us, but in this still atmosphere of expectation it was like the darkness at the cinema just before the movie explodes the silence with sound and light. I saw not even a flicker of movement anywhere along the road below, and from this high vantage point, I could see at least a mile in any direction. Flickering lights illuminated the road - not streetlights, but the blazing torches that a few Ares kids had laid out earlier. But still, I saw no signs of Tartarus's forces.

On _this_ side of the border, every able-bodied demigod was mobilised. All our best archers were packed into the towers, stocked with enough arrows to turn Typhon himself into a pincushion. Peleus was fully awake and primed to breathe fire on any who dared threaten his home. Our warriors lurked just below the hill's crest, ready to come down on the invaders like so many ambulatory tons of bricks. Behind the warriors, units of healers were on standby; and behind _them_ , several catapults were loaded and set. Even Chiron was dressed for combat, decked out in ancient armour and armed with a massive sword.

Now, we were just waiting for our enemies to make their first appearance.

"Wise Girl and Kasparov in position," Annabeth said in my ear. I glanced over at her tower in time to see Zack kick shut the access hatch. He waved at me, the gesture truly devoid of sarcasm, before turning to confer with his sister.

Alice drummed her fingers on the ledge. "I hate this waiting. Why are they taking so long? It's not like we're going to decide they're not coming if they delay long enough."

I nodded again. I wasn't talking much. My nerves were wound tighter than an alcoholic's temper. My pure sight was engaged and focussed, and for the first time in my life I was terrified it might fail me. The last thing I needed was my magic gift acting up when the defenders of western civilisation needed me to warn them that the forces of darkness were about to stick a sword up—

Well. You get the picture.

"I wonder how long we're going to be up here," I said, leaning against the ledge in an ineffectual attempt to calm myself. "Hell, maybe we should bring up deckchairs. I bet we'll be here a lot in the next few days. May as well get settled, right?"

"We might defeat Tartarus's forces tonight," Alice murmured. I gave her a sidelong glance, not bothering to say anything, and without looking at me she raised a hand in resignation. "Okay, I know. Not particularly likely."

I sighed. We were _all_ hoping that tonight the gods would dismiss the son of Chaos's attack on Olympus, and then send us reinforcements with which to sweep away the besieging army. But we _also_ knew that just because you're the child of a god doesn't mean you get miracles whenever you need them. All we could do was grit this one out and pray that we retained enough resources to—

It wasn't much, just a flicker of darkness a little blacker than the shadow around it, but it was enough. It appeared and vanished within a second, at the very edge of my vision. I resisted the urge to scream a warning - hysteria is unbecoming in a chief lookout - and just looked around calmly, scanning the road with my pure sight.

The air was darkening, _thickening,_ at the foot of the hill, with some weird power. It was confusing to see, a twisting of light and space, as though the ambient light in that part of the road was being choked out, as something darker took its place.

"Wise Girl, Yoda, I've got something," I snapped, suddenly frantic. "Weird power disturbance coming out of nowhere at the bottom of the hill, I don't know what's happening, there's this energy cloud forming—"

Next to me Alice stood bolt-straight, her aura whipping around her as though blown by a heavy breeze. "It's _them_ ," she shouted over me. "It's the monsters, Tartarus is shadow-travelling them in—"

"Stand ready, half-bloods," Chiron's strong voice rang in my ear for the first time since sundown. "Annabeth, give the order when we need to—"

Then that patch of darkness condensed, and suddenly _hundreds_ of monsters were on the road, and without a second's pause they came streaming up the hill towards us at high speed, moments away from ramming the borders. Annabeth's lightning-fast reactions saved us.

"Detonate the welcome packages, _now_!" she screamed. "Archers, _fire_. Ground soldiers, move forward in five, fou—"

Alice grabbed my shoulder and hauled us both down just before several explosions tore apart the stillness of the night. The shockwave blew over our heads, shaking the tower around us. I heard shouts of alarm in the levels below. If Alice had moved a second later we would have been thrown off the four-story tall structure.

"Nice catch," I muttered.

"What I'm here for."

We straightened up. The Ares, Demeter and some minor god kids had buried a number of powerful traps around the lower part of the hill, and now some of them had sprung. A row of celestial bronze landmines at the foot of the slope had detonated, taking out whole ranks of dracaena and Laistrygonians. A few metres upslope the Demeter kids' plant bombs were causing chaos, hurling vegetables at the leading monsters with terminal speed, taking heads off telkhines and sending empousa flying into Hyperboreans. Along the edges of the hill smaller traps of Greek fire were wreaking havoc, spreading through the monsters like a brush fire, reducing countless creatures to dust in less time than it took the archers to reload.

In a single stroke, the welcome packages had taken out at least two hundred monsters, and we'd killed the momentum of those that remained. That was the good news. The _bad_ news was that more monsters were still appearing out of the darkness. Around four hundred monsters filled the road and the bottom of the hill, and still they were moving towards us, admittedly with a hell of a lot more caution. The archers were raining down arrows, deterring the monsters' advance, but in the darkness their aim was inconsistent, only every fourth or fifth arrow felling its target.

And now, our guard dragon Peleus shook himself into action, taking a couple of dragging steps forward. You wouldn't normally use the word _discreet_ to describe a dragon, but most of the time he was, dozing or watching in silence from his place by the tree. Now, though, as he reared to his full height and stretched his fang-laden mouth open, it was easy to see why he'd been chosen to guard the Golden Fleece.

"That's just awesome," Percy muttered, drawing an admonition from Annabeth for unnecessary communication. Peleus took in a great huff of a breath, and paused to stare down at the monsters, still charging, as though a bloody great dragon wasn't standing in their way.

Then he lunged his head forward, and spat out a torrent of fire. The flames poured out, seeming like their opposite water even as they filled the air with murderous heat. The front two ranks of monsters were obliterated instantly, not merely turned to dust but to _ash_ , like they were nothing more than driftwood. Many of the creatures behind them were set alight, too, and they started running in circles as they disintegrated.

"Wow," Annabeth said, contradicting herself gloriously. "That's just incredible."

Alice shook her head. "At that rate we won't even need to—" Then she stopped, staring down at Peleus. I didn't get the chance to ask her what was wrong. I didn't need to. An instant later, shadow rippled across Peleus's back, and Jake materialised there, slipping down the dragon's slick skin, but grabbing on to a scale. We watched, horrified, as Peleus bucked in surprise, and as Jake plunged his sword into the dragon, all the way to the hilt.

The dragon raised its head, and let out a piercing roar that shook the hillside, even made the towers tremble. Annabeth started to tell the archers to concentrate fire on Jake but stopped because then we'd firing on Peleus, too, but the demigod wasn't done. He was nearly thrown off as Peleus shook again, but he hung on, and stabbed again, with even greater violence. Peleus screeched, but with less power than before, and already I could see the life fading out of him, _evaporating,_ as the dark power of Jake's blade sucked away the dragon's strength. Wilson clung on for another moment, holding his blade in place, and glanced up at the watchtowers.

For an instant, no longer than the time it takes to gasp, he stared directly into my eyes. And in that moment, I sensed his taunt: see how I can lie low your friends, for all their great power. Nothing can save them, not even you with your pure sight.

Then he dragged his sword out of Peleus's hide, and vanished away on another ripple of shadow.

The whole thing took about thirty seconds.

"Oh my gods," several voices whispered on the radio, as the monsters overcame the fear Peleus's attack had inspired and began to rush towards us again. The dragon, _our_ dragon, slowly collapsed to the ground, making barely another sound as he dissolved into nothingness. His eyes shut, and his claws relaxed as his strength left him. He lay down in the end, stretching onto the ground as though going to sleep.

"Warriors, move forward," Annabeth whispered, as the monsters continued their charge. No-one reacted, and after a second she repeated, in a harsh tone, "Warriors, _advance_. Proceed over the border but do _not_ move downslope," I glanced over. Zack was pacing around, agitated, but she was stock-still, arms folded as she surveyed the battle. "Archers, maintain fire. Grenadier, do not detonate any more packages, we need them in case we get caught again."

The warriors moved forward as one unified front, weapons raised. They stepped past the towers and over the borders, led by the eldest demigods. There was about fifty of them down there, arranged in ranks of ten. They came to a halt just over the crest of the hill, and stood staring down at the attackers as they approached.

The monsters reached Peleus, but he was almost gone now, fading away as though he had merely been an image formed from mist. There wasn't even any dust as he went. He just disappeared.

I looked at Alice. "How the hell did that happen?"

She glanced at me, then back at the battlefield. "Now we know what we're dealing with."

"Don't mourn him too much," Chiron's voice was steady. "Guardians like Peleus always return, in some form. For now, just worry about each other. We have a long way to go."

My stomach lurched as Peleus's last fragments disappeared, and as I looked down at the half-bloods standing so firmly, facing their enemies without any signs of fear. They held the high ground now, but if they didn't fight with everything they had in the next few minutes, many of them wouldn't turn around and walk back into camp. Their courage as they faced into that fate astounded me. There was no way, in a million years of training, that I would be capable of that.

Percy stood at their head. He took a step forward, raised his sword with both hands, and roared down at the monsters, an incoherent cry of challenge, defiance and fury.

"Do _not_ press forward," Annabeth's voice was harsh. "Maintain the high ground _at all costs_."

The sharpness in her tone was startling. I glanced at Alice, who was intent on the conflict. Without glancing at me, she muttered, "Annabeth knows Percy, knows the way he fights. His instinct is to rush forward, especially when he's angry, but that would be fatal."

I got that. The demigods had an unassailable advantage, so long as they stayed on top of the hill. Moving down was a literal slippery slope. If they started down, the monsters could easily lead them onto the road, where the odds would be even at best.

And so the front line of monsters came up, up, up, like a layer of rancid chemicals rising to the surface of a lake, and then with a ferocious, nightmarish noise from both sides, they crashed into the half-bloods.

Arrows continued to pour down from both towers, culling any unarmored monsters that were moving too slowly. The ranks of the leading monsters were already thinned by the time they reached the half-bloods, who hacked and slashed with terrifying precision, all of them diving into the fray with fervour so great it was nearly religious. Even Chiron was among them, beheading monsters with a broadsword that looked like it had been dreamt up by an overworked fantasy writer.

The monsters didn't stand a chance.

"We can do this," Alice murmured, nodding metronomically. "We can do it."

Annabeth maintained the stream of orders, but right now there wasn't much for her to do other than remind the half-bloods to stay upslope. The demigods were doing their work with craftsmanlike skill, tearing asunder the monsters who dared threaten this sanctuary, wielding their blades with a pure fury that would surely make even Tartarus flee in terror. Percy, in a single movement, leapt through the air and beheaded a Hyperborean as it loomed over him with a massive ice-pike. A few metres away, Kevin cut down three dracaena in a single whirl, and a daughter of Ares beside him drove her spear through a telkhine's chest and into the leg of a twisted goblin-creature behind it.

There was a horrific beauty to it, if only because it was so smooth, a great machine grinding through countless souls and spirits with perfect precision. It made Peleus's death seem less like the beginning of a horrible defeat and more like a sacrifice made to ensure a brutal victory.

And so sooner had I thought that, and Alice snatched my arm into an iron grip.

" _Cyrus_ ," she gasped, the colour draining from her face, her aura lighting up as foresight flooded through her. "Look out - _search_ for something. Jake is about to do something."

"Wha— What? What's he doing?"

"I don't know. Something. Look. _Look_."

My earlier sense of foreboding had faded away, but now it came flooding back. My heart pounded. I hadn't seen Alice so terrified by a premonition since we were in the Fields of Silence. I stared at her for a second, frozen in alarm, but she shook me, and I refocussed my pure sight.

I scanned the hillside. It was tough to separate the different energy signatures. The half-bloods' auras cast distracting glows over everything, and the monsters were wreathed in squirming shadowy power, Tartarus's dark blessing. The teeming mass of monsters downslope was too dense to make out properly but I still looked, searching for some sign of Tartarus or someone else, perhaps even—

There he was.

At the back of his army, on the far side of the road, obscured by the monsters around him but made visible by his unmistakeable aura, Jake Wilson stood at work, shaping some dark working of power.

I squinted down at him. The son of Erebus was on one knee, his hands cupped as though holding water, his head lowered in concentration. Dark energy wrapped around him in an opaque cocoon, a certain sign that he was about to unleash a serious amount of power. I couldn't make out much else at this distance, but I thought I saw a ball of condensed shadows revolving in his hands.

I asked myself what people usually do with concentrated pieces of energy in battles. It didn't take long to think of the answer.

"Annabeth, we've got a problem," I flicked a switch on my headset to turn off all bands except Annabeth's. No need to panic the demigods with the news that Jake Wilson was preparing his version of a tank shell _just_ yet. "Big problem. Jake's not finished screwing with us."

"What's he doing?" Annabeth replied tightly.

"Look towards the road, towards the back of the army," I said. Alice was on one knee now, regaining composure as her foresight continued to course through her. "Jake's there. You see him?"

There was a long pause, then, "I see him."

"You won't be able to see it, but he's shaping some kind of intense power, and he's going to unleash it any second. I think it'll turn the tide of the battle if we don't stop him, because Alice is getting some _seriously_ bad premonitions here. We need to shut him down, _right now_ , there's no time." I paused, aware that my next comment wouldn't be well-received. "We need to fire the catapults."

" _What_? No." I didn't look away from Jake, but I could feel Annabeth staring over at me. "Our ammunition is too limited. Using them now would be disastrous in the long run."

"It'll be even more disastrous in the long run if we let Jake unleash that power," I snapped back. Wilson's shadow-bomb was now the size of a large watermelon, and still growing. His aura was churning with dizzying intensity. "There's no time to do anything else. The demigods are too far away to reach him in time. The catapults are our only long-range weapons. We have two, right? Fire the one aimed at the road. Even if it doesn't kill Jake it'll stop his working. We don't have a choice. We lose weaponry or we lose the initiative in the battle, and if we lose it again we won't get it back."

The next couple seconds of radio silence were some of the longest in my life. Sweat trickled down my back. Alice's hand, resting on the ledge, was twitching, almost convulsing.

I drew breath to speak again, but the line fuzzed—

"This is Wise Girl to Wildfire, fire the first catapult. I repeat, fire the first catapult." Annabeth shouted. "Do it _now_."

"No problem," Leo's voice came in fuzzily. "Get down, overwatch."

I heard a creak of a wooden lever through my earpiece, and I dragged myself and Alice down, a second before a whistling load of bronze cannon, Greek fire and scrap metal shot through the sky, inches from where my head had just been. Then came the impact, an earth-shaking one which rattled the towers and was instantly followed by numerous explosions as the Greek fire detonated. The cries of anger from the monsters and the shouts of triumph from the demigods filled the air in a high-pitched counterpoint to the blast, which echoed on across the hillside as smaller detonations popped and spat.

After a long moment, I straightened up.

The projectile had done even greater damage than the welcome packages. It had obliterated all monsters in a twenty-metre radius of the impact. The leading ranks of attackers found themselves suddenly separated from the remaining troops on the road by a gap which, in the mercurial conditions of a battlefield, must have seemed a hundred miles wide. Most of them beat a panicked retreat, tearing down the hill towards the remaining monsters, their fear giving them improbable speed.

The demigods cut down the slow ones, and a few started to chase after the fleeing creatures, but Annabeth was still on duty. "Do _not_ move downslope. Maintain your position. If the monsters regroup and strike back you'll be caught in no man's land. Get back to the crest."

The overeager half-bloods came back, but the monsters had no plan to strike back. They regrouped at top speed, but continued to hightail it away from the hill. The remaining army split in two and took off in opposite directions along the road.

All this I registered only slightly, as I searched for some sign of Jake, but there was none to be seen. He was just gone. The spot where he'd been standing was now blasted earth, the grass burnt away, leaving only cracked mud. If he'd been standing there at the moment of impact, he would have been instantly vaporised. And we'd fired so fast, surely he hadn't noticed the approaching projectile until it had been too late.

But somehow, despite all logic being arrayed against his survival, I didn't think it was going to be that easy.

Alice was finally upright again. "Good job," she said, smiling faintly. "You just won the battle."

I met her eyes. "Yeah. But at what cost? Peleus is already gone. We had three aces in the hole, and two are already used up. What happens when we need the last one?"

We both looked over at Annabeth. She was gripping onto the ledge as though it was about to disappeared under her. Zack was talking to her, looking cheerful, but she was silent and still. Below us, the cheers rose among the demigods as they celebrated what must have seemed like an easy victory. It was hard to tell from up here, but there didn't appear to be any dead. Chiron walked among them, congratulating the heroes, helping the wounded. As I watched him, he raised a hand to his headset.

My earpiece fuzzed. "This is Yoda," the centaur said, sounding more relaxed than he had in days. "We'll have a review meeting in half an hour. Don't lose focus - Tartarus isn't done with us - but well done."

The line hissed again as he tuned out.

The hillside was a scene of destruction, in some places torn to shreds, covered with the detritus of the monsters, yet the atmosphere was cheerful, almost festive, as the half-bloods decompressed at record speed. I could hear the archers in the towers, most of them Apollo kids, starting to sing rolling victory ballads. Even the darkness of the night seemed less heavy, the possibility of seeing the dawn now viable.

"He's not done with us," Alice echoed, bending down to open the entry hatch. "No way. They'll be back tomorrow night. Tartarus is getting ready to start a heavy metal concert. That was just the soundcheck."

* * *

As I descended the watch tower, and then into camp, I was greeted with more enthusiastic goodwill than I'd ever encountered outside of my own imagination. Though I'd kept my warning to Annabeth off the global airwaves, somehow word had gotten around that I'd averted a disaster.

"That was awesome, Cyrus." Percy assailed me the moment I poked my head out of the tower. "You saved our asses with that sight of yours, man."

"You saved our asses, too, son of Poseidon. I could hear your battle-cries from all the way up there."

We headed down the hill, followed by Alice and a few of the archers.

"This reminds me of the time the borders started failing, and we were fighting all kinds of weird monsters _every_ _day_ ," Percy went on, excitement and hyperactivity pulsing through him and his aura. The demigods bustled around us, shouting cries of greeting to each other, as though we'd all just met on the shore of a desert island, having miraculously survived a drastic shipwreck.

I felt so dazed, I almost believed I'd just emerged from a shipwreck. The teeming life around me seemed surreal, implausible, after witnessing the destruction that had fallen on our defences like a biblical tsunami. Twenty minutes ago, the night had been a bear trap which had clamped onto our legs, and we'd been trying to force it off before we bled to death. Now, the cool darkness of the night was positively _reassuring_. The shock of Peleus's death was disappearing as smoothly as he had, and I felt like I could have been returning from an enthusiastic singalong.

The lack of danger around me seemed impossible, and for a second I wondered if it was a trick imposed upon me by my brain, in an attempt to cope with the true nightmarish reality. I couldn't even keep up a conversation, I was so distracted by this impossible transition. I stumbled on through camp, and didn't register my surroundings until I came to a robotic halt at the ping-pong table in the Big House.

I peered around. The counsellors were assembling, a couple still coming in, all of them humming with relief. Somehow, they were all uninjured.

I realised I was standing right next to Chiron.

"That went as well as we could have hoped," the centaur murmured, his tone grim.

"That's good, right?" I was surprised by his expression, which was so dark, one might have thought his tail had just been cut off.

"It's good that we were so lucky," he replied. "I'm just afraid that we've used up our quota of good fortune." He looked around the table. "Good. We're all here. Let's get started."

They began by reviewing our military position, which was good. Only a small number had been injured, and we'd done a lot of damage to Tartarus's forces. The only death had been Peleus's, and in the stark light of hindsight most of us saw that that had been inevitable. The borders were as strong as ever, and there was a possibility that the Hunters of Artemis would arrive to help us before the next attack.

"But there is one piece of bad news," Kevin said. "As you saw, we had to use one of our catapult payloads to force an end to the battle. We've only got one of those missiles left, and we don't have enough materials to make more. We need to be very careful when we use it, because there won't be another one."

Chiron nodded. "Those catapults were always meant to be an emergency measure. I didn't expect such an emergency at this early stage, but that's the way combat works." He frowned. "Jake Wilson has shown us a flaw in our strategy. We need to find a way to strike at the army's back ranks without using the projectiles. Otherwise, Jake will be free to use his powers the same way, and we will be defenceless."

"I have some concealment stones left," said Olivia. The daughter of Hecate had been released from the infirmary in the last half-hour. "We can plant some people on the far side of the road, so they're right behind the monsters. Then at least we'll have options."

"We could do that," Annabeth said, leaning on the ping-pong table, looking exhausted. "I don't like putting people that far from the protection of the camp's borders, but this looks like the only way to keep ahead of Jake."

"Good," Chiron nodded, relaxing a little.

"So what's the next move?" Percy asked, from the end of the table. "What's the plan for tomorrow?"

"We hold our position as it is," Annabeth replied, rubbing her eyes. "Tartarus can't keep this up for ever. Sooner or later he'll start running out of monsters to throw at us. We just need to make sure we don't break under the pressure before then."

"Remember, we must maintain our defence until the gods repel the assault on Olympus," Chiron chimed in. "I heard from Hermes a few minutes ago. Tartarus launched his attack on the Empire State Building at the same time as his attack here. His forces broke into the lobby, and some of them managed to force the elevator up to Olympus, but the gods fought them off easily. Athena believes the son of Chaos will strike again when darkness falls tomorrow. We have time to prepare, but not enough to relax."

The centaur stopped, and looked at a wooden box that lay in front of him on the table. I peered at it, thinking that it seemed familiar, but in my weariness I didn't recognise it.

"I'll get the piece of darkness to the gods within the next six hours," Chiron said. "That should help their defence against Tartarus."

I frowned. "Is _that_ the piece of darkness?" As I spoke, I saw that the box was identical to the one Jack had shown me back in New Mexico, except it had no aura. It was, to my sight, just a normal wooden box.

"Of course it is," Chiron answered, looking at me in surprise. "You've seen it before, haven't you? Alice gave it to me earlier."

The daughter of Apollo nodded. "Yeah. That's it."

I looked from Chiron, to the box, to Alice, and back to the box, feeling confused, as though I was examining a jigsaw puzzle with a crucial piece missing. They were saying that this held the piece of darkness, and there was no reason for them to lie, but I didn't believe them. The artefact had an incredibly intense aura, I'd seen it just yesterday. Auras like that can't be just switched off. I knew Alice wouldn't have taken the item from the box, so why…

It hit me, and my heart broke. My knees went to rubber, and I had to grasp onto the table to stay upright.

We were screwed. So screwed, we hadn't even _begun_ to realise it.

"Could I see that?" I asked, somehow in a calm voice. Chiron handed me the box and said something else, but I wasn't listening. Moving slowly, as though in a trance of horror, I slid open the lid, and looked at what lay inside.

It was just as I'd imagined: a three-inch long rectangle of black rock, perhaps obsidian, like the memory stone Jake Wilson had once shown me. It rested in a wooden cradle, reflecting the dim light, seeming to absorb some of it. But it had no aura, no indication that it was an ancient fragment of enchained power.

Because it wasn't. It was an ordinary bit of rock.

I looked up at the half-bloods, who were talking about something else, something unimportant. Their voices seemed a thousand miles away. We'd been fooled so completely, and it was about to cost us everything, yet no-one had come close to realising it. Percy was talking animatedly, Annabeth and Kevin watching him, while Chiron drummed his fingers on the table and Olivia and Bradley had a whispered discussion; but all of them, they were oblivious, discussing how to climb the mountain when we'd already gone over the edge of the cliff.

I glanced to my left, and found myself staring into Alice's eyes. She stared back, her aura shivering as foresight once again came to her, but this time it was too late. I raised one eyebrow, glanced at the box in my hand, and she nodded at me. She knew, but far too late.

I swallowed, and drew a deep breath. I've delivered a lot of bad news, but this was going to top it all.

But before I could speak, Percy stopped talking, and stared over my shoulder in pure amazement.

"Jack!" he cried. The other demigods followed his gaze, turning to stare, and let out similar exclamations. I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. Feeling distanced from my surroundings, as though a bomb had just gone off, I turned to see Jack's face floating in mid-air, inches away from me.

I just stared for a moment, an odd fear passing through me for a second, accompanied by the deranged idea that my realisation had summoned up Jack, as though he were an errant spirit. Through the patch of cloud, we could see his head, beard and the shotgun barrel resting against his right shoulder. He was scanning us all, his dark eyes unreadable, and as I turned he met my gaze. Instantly he registered the box in my hand and the bleakness in my eyes.

"Ah," he murmured. "Looks like you're figured it out. I didn't think you'd manage it so soon. Well done, I suppose."

Chiron was saying something, but Alice was beside me now, glaring into the son of Hephaestus's face. She looked heartbroken, more deeply wounded than I'd seen her since we'd come back from the Edge of the West.

"What have you _done_ , Jack?" she whispered, her fists clenched. "How could you do this to us? To _me_?" She paused, shaking her head at him, her aura splitting and storming around her. Then she repeated, in a broken murmur almost too low to hear, "What have you _done_?"


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Two**

* * *

 _The Joker: You see madness, as you know, is like gravity: all it takes is a little_ push.

—'The Dark Knight'

* * *

Jack just looked at us for a long, silent moment. Then he said, "I did what I thought was best. I was never going to give up Amelia's last gift. But I knew that the wards weren't going to last under that pressure for more than a day. I wasn't prepared to be responsible for your deaths."

"Wait, _what's_ he saying?" Percy asked, behind us. The room had gone as silent as our tombs would soon be. "What's he's talking about?"

I turned to them. "This." I tossed the box, the worthless obsidian, onto the table. The lid, already loose, skittered off and onto the floor. "Jack didn't give us the piece of darkness. He gave us a fake, a decoy to make us leave."

"But how can you be sure of that?" Annabeth asked, staring at me. "You can't kn—"

"I _can_ ," I cut across, harsh as my anger intensified. "Jack _showed_ me the piece of darkness. It has an aura unlike anything I've ever seen. This? This is _nothing_. It's a piece of damn _rock_." I met Chiron's eyes. His face was frozen in emotional _rigor mortis_. "We've failed."

"It's alright," Jack said. I turned back to him, resisting the urge to punch at his incorporeal face. "Tartarus still has some forces outside my house, but he believes the piece of darkness is with you. His monsters will leave and he'll never know that—"

" _You don't get it_ ," I shouted, surprising myself with my own fury. Everyone around me was silent, even Alice. For a single, impossibly bleak moment of rage and fear, I felt like I was standing alone, not just against this man, but against all the forces of darkness that were arrayed against us, that were surely now about to crush us. "You don't _understand_ , Jack. Tartarus is _always_ listening, he's _around_ us in the shadows. He can't hear everything, sure, but do you _really_ think he doesn't have a lock on your piece of darkness by now? He's a primordial being, one of the most powerful entities _ever_. He only needed to know the location of his lost power, and he set it up so that _we_ led him right to it." I stared at Jack, whose face was a unreadable mask. "Answer this. If Tartarus believes we've taken his item of power, why the _hell_ are there still monsters outside your house?"

Total silence. The son of Hephaestus glared back, and goosebumps tingled across my skin as I caught a glimpse of that burning insanity I'd seen and dismissed during our first evening in New Mexico. Then, I'd thought I was misconstruing shadows in the firelight, but now I could see the madness raging in Jack's soul like a nuclear inferno. It was hidden behind his anger and sorrow, but it was there, driving all his other emotions into extremity. For an instant, I even _felt it_ , felt a tearing discontent in the core of my mind, forcing every feeling into destructiveness and dragging every thought into a void of hatred.

And then, I swear to Zeus, we heard an almighty sound rumble through the house behind Jack. Alice glanced at me, then him. "What was that?"

He disappeared from the IM for a moment, and I could hear him tapping on a keyboard. Then he came back into view, his anger wiped away by pure fear.

"It's the monsters," Jack whispered, his bombastic tone disappearing into the wind. "There's more of them, and they're attacking again. My wards have less than a day left in them, I—" Another crash rumbled through the house, making him jump. "I have to go. I'll fight them off. I— I'm sorry. I'll be alright. I—"

He swiped a shaking hand through the air, and the Iris-Message dissipated.

I turned to the ping-pong table. The demigods were silent in horror, arms folded, brows crumpled in anger or slumped in shock. Chiron was more dejected than I'd ever seen him. He leaned on the table with one bent arm, his face covered by his other hand.

Then he moved, with abrupt violence. In a single motion, he snatched up the box with the useless obsidian, turned, and hurled it at the wall behind him with brutal force. It shattered on impact, the pieces of the box scattering across the floor, the rock spinning under the table. He stood with his back to us for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly as he breathed, trying to control his anger. I wondered if he'd ever been brought to this level of powerless desperation.

Finally, he turned back to us.

"Nothing changes," Chiron said through gritted teeth, his expression harder than stone. "Even if Tartarus obtains the piece of darkness, there's no guarantee that he'll overcome the gods. We hold our position, no matter what happens. No matter what happens." He looked at each of us in turn. The half-bloods seemed to shrink under his gaze, as they began to understand that for once, the Fates were not on our side. "We don't give up. We can't give up. We _can't_."

* * *

I lay curled in bed, eyes tight shut, while my mind ran a thousand-mile marathon. The cabin was silent. All of camp, bar the night guards, were asleep, or at least pretending to be. Chiron had sent us to bed after the IM with Jack, telling us that the most important thing was to rest. On another night we might have argued, but given that it was pushing three in the morning and we had another apocalyptic battle to enjoy tomorrow night, everyone wanted to get to bed as soon as possible.

As I lay there, chasing thoughts of doom around my mind like so many loitering geese, I wondered how many of us were still awake, haunted by what we'd seen and heard that night, oppressed by the idea that a lot of us might not be alive this time tomorrow. It seemed a peculiar isolation, all these people pretending to be asleep, trapped in the silence of their minds, alone in the darkness even while in the same room as their best friends.

It seemed exactly the kind of torture Tartarus would enjoy.

But these thoughts were merely distractions from the things that really depressed me. My mind rotated between three people, their faces looming before my mind's eye like ghostly symbols of the coming disaster.

First came Jack, his bearded, scowling visage imposing his rage on me like a dictator's judgement, impressing upon me the sense of our failure, our foolishness, stamping it onto my soul like the seal on a condemned man's death warrant.

My initial anger at the son of Hephaestus had faded as sheer disbelief at our stupidity took up the main part in the melodrama of my emotions. The people who'd gone on the mission to New Mexico were supposed to be the elite of camp, the finest minds and fighters available to the gods of the west. We were meant to be the _best_ , the ones who couldn't fail. The perfect people, in fact, for a mission that simply could _not_ be failed.

And we'd failed.

If someone had described this to me, or if I'd read it in a story, I would have found it hilarious. Absurd. Like the best sprinter in the world losing a race to an overweight couch potato. It wasn't even like Jack was some sort of genius. He'd pulled the easiest, most obvious trick in the proverbial book. He'd given us a fake. Not even the dumbest of criminals would fall for that, but us, o mighty team of heroes, wielders of righteous power, had been taken in like schoolchildren.

It was _embarrassing_.

The half-bloods' reaction to what Jack had done was darker than anything I'd seen at camp, and for good reason. It was possible that a half-blood mission had never failed so entirely. The only lucky thing was that none of us were culprits of this disaster. If we had been, it would have torn camp apart.

Every few moments, I felt the urge to bang my head against the wall until I passed out. Hell, I could just about understand the demigods believing Jack so completely. They always wanted to think the best of their fellows. But I was the cynical mortal, the one with the grim view of humanity. If anyone had been going to realise the trick, it was me. Hell, I was the only one there who could check the piece of darkness's authenticity. And yet it had never even occurred to me that Jack would do this.

And the infuriating thing was that Tartarus had expected it, _planned_ for it. It was obvious to me now. The shadow god had created a win-win situation. Even if we'd gotten back to camp in time to fight off the attackers, there was no way we'd send the piece of darkness to Olympus because there was no way that Jack would ever surrender it. Somehow, Tartarus had known that nothing on earth could persuade the son of Hephaestus to let go of his wife's memory.

I wondered if the son of Chaos had intervened, twisted Jack's mind to make certain of his unshakable stubbornness, perhaps by the means of Dolos's dark tricks. But then until a few days ago, no-one other than Nyx had known that Jack possessed the piece of darkness. Could it be that this was destiny, that the Fates themselves had woven this grotesque tapestry?

 _True power, the darkness will gain/While the gods shall face eternal pain._

It didn't really matter. The inescapable reality was that Tartarus was going to reclaim his power and ascend to a level of strength beyond the elder gods. Only good fortune of the purest sort could save Olympus now, and the events of the last few days didn't give me any hope for that.

For the first time, I felt real dread at what Tartarus might be capable of. I'd always known that he was a great danger, but until now I'd only been afraid of the _possibility_ of his gaining power. My terror now, at the reality of his primal power, at the colossal threat he posed to everything, was a thousand times stronger than any previous fear I'd had.

And yet. And yet. As dangerous as he was, I knew he was not the lone, even the chief architect of Olympus's fall.

Jake Wilson was the third face that haunted me in the dark. His presence, more than any other, weighed on my mind like emotional lead. Tartarus's ancient wisdom may be a keystone of the grand plan, but Wilson's knowledge of the ways of the half-bloods, his ruthless cunning, and his burning wish for revenge were the building blocks. Even though we hadn't seen much of him, even though he still kept mainly in the shadows, I knew that it was his actions and decisions that were bringing us and the gods to our knees.

An irrational urge to talk to him now, to stare into his eyes and implore him to desist, filled me, as though merely speaking to Jake would dissolve all our problems, sweep away all the conflict.

And no sooner had I thought that, when the darkness of my closed eyes stirred, and shapes began to form around me. I started, but I was not awake now, or at least not in the normal way. I realised I was sitting down instead of lying, and I turned my head to look around. As I did so, the changing shapes resolved themselves, and light filled the air. I blinked twice.

I was sitting by the window in my bedroom, back in Manhattan, where I'd been when Hestia had arrived. Outside my window, the sky was sealed by a roof of iron storm clouds. The city was silent, the streets completely still.

I glanced across the table, and somehow wasn't surprised to see Jake sitting there, looking back at me with an amused grin.

"Huh," he said. He looked younger here, on whatever plane of dreaming wakefulness that we'd stumbled onto, than he did in real life. "I didn't think that would work. Guess your powers are wider than I thought."

I looked around the room. It seemed normal, right down to the door standing ajar. I felt _normal_ , too, not scared, not disorientated, not confused. I wasn't dreaming, I wasn't quite awake, but I knew, too, that I wasn't in any danger. I noticed that my dagger was missing from my belt, and Jake's sword from his.

Now, as I faced him alone for the first time since the winter solstice, that sensation of recognition came back to me, but it came far stronger than ever. It was that same feeling of connection, of the presence of a genuine bond between Jake and me. It wasn't an amiable thing, nor a confrontational feeling. Just a sense that we were bound together so tightly that neither one of us could push away the other. Perhaps it was the feeling of raw destiny, poured straight from the Fates' own brazier.

"Funny that we ended up back here," Jake said. "I guess it's a neutral place. Good place to talk."

I met his gaze. "What can we have to talk about? Unless you're here to try convincing me to join your side again, in which case I promise you're wasting your time."

"I know," he shrugged. His aura didn't bother me here, I could barely see it. "I just thought it would be nice to talk before the end. How does it feel to have been tricked by a old crank of a son of Hephaestus?"

"He fooled you, too, if I remember Nico's story correctly," I snapped back. "Thanks to him, Alice and him were able to save the Flame of Olympus when you stole it."

"That's true," Jake nodded. "That's why I was glad that he balanced the scales like this. Makes things fair, you know?"

I rose from my chair, and started pacing the room. Jake watched me, his eyes following every step I took.

"You know, you talk about fairness a lot for someone who's going to destroy civilisation," I muttered, kicking the door shut, mainly just to kick something. "Seems like it means a lot to you. Shame you can't apply that sense of fair play to the rest of your actions."

"Why do you always try to cast me as the anarchist, Cyrus?" Jake said smoothly. He hadn't shifted in his chair since I'd first looked at him. He was like a cat, curled by the window, watching the mouse have a panic attack. "I'm the balancer of the scales, the deliverer of justice. The gods are a blight. They hinder mankind and they destroy everything they touch. I'm _saving_ civilisation by doing this. Don't you see that it's for your own go—"

" _No_ ," I stopped at my other window, and stood glaring at him. "No, and I don't much care what you think, anyway. You've turned yourself into a monster, Jake, and now you're turning Jane into one, too. But that's fine. That's your goddamn free will. But stop lying. Stop fooling yourself that you're a hero, that you're doing the right thing. You're doing this because you're nothing but a spoilt child who won't accept that a bad thing happened. You're like Jack, refusing to let go. It doesn't matter what you tear down, it doesn't matter how high a throne you claim, _nothing will bring your mother back_. You're alone, Jake, now why don't you just _accept_ that?"

A hush fell on the room, greater than the earlier silence. Jake's relaxed, smug expression had broken, and now pure, murderous rage gripped him. His eyes blazed, and his fists clenched on the table in front of him. He just stared at me for a second, then stood up and walked towards me, moving across this psychic reconstruction of my room, the room where he'd once shown me why he hated the gods in the hope that I would understand, that I would _sympathise_.

He walked right up to me, stopping about four inches away. His short breaths poured onto my face in hot bursts. He was two inches taller than me, but I didn't flinch. I stared back at him, stared into the face of the craftsman of the end of the world.

"You think you're special, Cyrus," Jake spat, his eyes narrowing. For once, he made no attempt to look calm. His rage poured out without any veil, and it was ugly. "You think you know things, you think you _see_ things. But you're _blind_. You're powerless. Nothing you've ever done has made any impact. Nothing you've ever said has made a difference. You're just a symbol, a shaky hope for the gods to hang onto as they face into their demise. Lightbringer? You'd be lucky if you illuminated a dead monkey's day. Hell, you couldn't even do anything to stop one of your best _friends_ from joining m—"

I snapped. Without even thinking, I snatched Jake's left wrist and twisted him around, then shoved his back with my right hand, pinning him to the wall. He barked in surprise, and started to struggle, but stopped sharply as I gave his arm another quarter-twist.

"Didn't know I did martial arts training, did you?" I hissed in his ear. "Didn't think I would fight you, did you? But you always underestimate me, Wilson. I'm a mortal, right? What would I know? What can I do against you, O mighty half-blood?"

"You can a lot against me," he muttered back tightly, his speech mumbled with one side of his face pressed to the wall. "But you can't do anything against Tartarus. He's going to sweep you away, you and all your stupid f—"

I jerked his arm, and he yelped in angry pain. He shut up, breathing heavily, as I leaned against him, resisting the urge to have done with it and break his arm, even if it wasn't real.

"You're declaring your victory a little early, dear Jake," I growled. "You think the gods are just going to _surrender_? Tartarus isn't going to become omnipotent just because he gets a little bit of black rock. The gods will fight him, and they'll fight hard. This isn't done, you delusional, traitorous bag of dracaena shit."

Jake started to shake, and for a second I thought he was trying to throw me off, but then I realised he was laughing. _Laughing_. Even through my burning fury, I felt a shiver of fear. He wasn't insane enough to do the crazy laugh thing for no good reason. No, he was laughing because he thought I was a fool.

"What's the joke, traitor?" I spat.

"There's a lot of them," he said, after a moment, sounding positively relaxed. He shifted his head to speak more clearly. "It's a joke that you think the gods will fight. _Fight_? They're going to run like scared lambs when Tartarus comes knocking. They never fight anything unless they think they can win, and even then they usually get their underlings to do the work. No, they're going to run for the hills."

"But— but Chiron said they might have a chance," I said, uncertainty starting to creep in. "He—"

"Chiron's their servant, always has been. You really think he's going to _question_ them? Fuck, Hades'll throw a Christmas party before that happens. What they say, he parrots. I'm surprised you haven't realised that."

I stared at him, not believing him but still fearing he was right. "And— and what's the other joke?"

He chuckled again. "The other joke, dear Cyrus, is that you've forgotten that we're standing in the only shadowy corner of your bedroom."

My grip had loosened, so it didn't take much. The shadows convulsed around us, and I was thrown off Jake. I landed on my back on the ground, my breath going out of me in a huff, and before I could move the son of Erebus was over me. He slapped me in the face, then got a hand on my throat and a knee on my chest before I could struggle. Around us, the room started to change, the walls moving and the furniture fading away. After a second, we were no longer in my room. We were back in that cell Jake had put me in two years ago, when he'd kidnapped me.

"You see, Cyrus?" he gritted his teeth in a maniacal grin. He could have strangled me then, but settled for holding me still. The stone floor of the cell was rough and hard under me, digging into my back. "Nothing you do makes a difference. You never escaped me. I just let you think you got away, so you could continue blundering around the half-blood world, knocking things over and being a distraction. But your destiny isn't coming. Well. It is. But your destiny is to die in the ashes of a world you don't even belong in."

He started to put pressure on my throat now, and as I gasped for air I saw in his eyes that he truly meant to kill me.

I'm not sure what would have happened then, if I hadn't remembered this wasn't real. Perhaps Jake would have strangled me and then I would have simply woken, like you always do when you die in dreams. Or perhaps he would have actually killed some part of me, broken my mind somehow, and I would have been rendered a gibbering vegetable.

None of this happened, though, because just as he started to lean down on my throat, I remembered that I wasn't really lying on that ground, because I was actually lying in bed in Camp Half-Blood. A rush of strength burned through me, and I kicked up with my legs, making Jake stumble, and as his grip loosened I jerked my shoulders side to side, forcing my neck out of his hand with a painful wrench. I swept my leg at him and tripped him over. Then I was up and running, through the cell door before Jake got back on his feet.

I raced down a dark corridor, not sure where I was headed but certain I was moving in the right direction. I barrelled around a corner, and saw a torch blazing in a bracket some way ahead, and in the ceiling above it I saw a trapdoor, just like the one I'd gone through when I escaped this place for real. I dashed for it, and then Jake's voice boomed out around me, impossibly loud.

"YOU CAN RUN," he bellowed, sounding more like some kind of beast than a human, "YOU CAN RUN, BUT I'LL GET YOU. I'LL RUN YOU DOWN, AND _YOU'LL TAKE YOUR MEDICINE_ , _GODDAMMIT_."

I ignored him, and skittered to a stop beneath the trapdoor. I leaped up, afraid it was too high, but at the zenith of the jump, my fingers caught onto a bronze handle, and as I dropped I pulled the door open. Jake's shouts continued to echo around me, like the howls of a doomed monster, but I paid no attention as I dragged myself up into a dusty cellar, knowing on some level that his anger was only partly directed at me, that really I was hearing the screaming rage that festered in his unconscious.

I hurried across the wooden cellar floor, recalling it but not caring to reflect on the memory. I burst through the door into a hallway, and started to hear cracking, snapping sounds, becoming louder as they drew closer, but I kept running. I dashed down the hall and threw myself around the corner, but as I did so, out of the corner of my eye I saw the floor behind me fissuring, cracking open to disclose the dark void that lay beneath. I brushed off the terror that chilled me at the thought of disappearing into that abyss, and kept going.

I ran down the last hall, toward the front door that lay at the end, racing the cracking noises that were growing louder and louder, and now the ceiling above me was shaking too, as though the entire house was being torn apart by Jake's infernal anger. He was still shouting, but the words were growing less distinct as I neared the door.

Then I was at the door, and I pulled at it, yet to my utter horror it didn't open, even as the fissure coming up the hall got closer, and I yanked, desperate. But before I could collapse into panic, I realised I was turning the doorknob the wrong way, and I dragged it the other direction. The door popped open, and I threw myself out of Jake's house, out of the dark core of his mind, and back into the safety of my own unconscious.

* * *

I had a moment where I was having a good dream and I was about to awake, but I didn't want to because I knew I'd be thrown back into a reality far more nightmarish than any dream. I clung on, trying to stay in the protective bounds of unconsciousness, but the very act of fighting for sleep dragged me into wakefulness.

I opened my eyes.

The cabin was silent, its darkness fractured by beams of light coming through half-opened curtains. I squinted at my bedside clock. 12:30. Normally I wouldn't want to sleep so late, but considering we'd be fighting monsters at 1 a.m., it didn't really matter.

I closed my eyes again. My post-dream good feeling was fading fast, as the morbidity of our situation sank onto me like a dark fog descending on a city. First came the memory of the battle, the nightmarish extent of the monsters streaming up Half-Blood Hill. Then I recalled the post-battle meeting, the realisation of our mistake, and finally my psychic meeting with Jake.

(I tried to ignore the slight soreness in my throat.)

I didn't understand how we'd been able to have that meeting. I did not, as far as I knew, have any psychic powers. But the _how_ didn't matter much. We'd spoken as clearly as we would have if I'd walked down the hill and faced him, and I saw now what had eluded me before: Jake was _using_ Tartarus. The son of Erebus had joined the primordial being only because his rise was the best chance for him to get revenge.

Not that that really mattered, either. All these thoughts, all these questions, they were just burial rites. The belief that we could outwit Tartarus was now a corpse mouldering in the middle of camp. We could try to convince ourselves otherwise, we could try to believe that Jack could fight off Tartarus's forces even after his wards failed. We could certainly believe in our own ability to defend camp.

But no-one could believe that the gods would defeat a newly-empowered primordial being. It was only a matter of time before Tartarus reached Olympus, and once he did that, the game would surely be over. After that, every second that we survived was a second stolen from the cold master Time and his dark brother Death.

Yet I couldn't surrender. None of us could, or would. We were going to fight until there no-one left to fight for.

Finally I got out of bed, if not ready at least willing to face the day. As I dressed, I considered the bleak truth that I may have just had my final sleep. The fear that thought aroused was somewhat allayed by the idea that even in sleep I'd managed to stick it to Jake.

I pulled on my socks, then my shoes, and considered IM-ing my parents now, in case there wasn't time later. It was the right thing to do, the filial thing. If they didn't hear from me this morning, they might not. Ever. My stomach clenched at the thought, but I couldn't tell if my anxiety was for me or for them.

I dug into my pockets and found a drachma. I passed it from finger to finger, catching a beam of sunlight on its rough edge. I didn't even have to tell them what was happening. I could just call, say hi, tell them I might not be back until the end of the summer. It could be easy.

I stared at the piece of gold for a long moment, my pure sight fading in and out by itself. I could see their faces before me, curious, concerned, listening. The only people who'd never doubted me.

But I shook my head before the tears came, and shoved the drachma back in my pocket. I couldn't do it. It would be too much like saying goodbye. Too much like giving up.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Three**

* * *

 _Magog simply bellowed and charged, and with howls of hunger and rage a dozen hairless beasts bounded from the shadows all around us and flung themselves at us with bloodthirsty disregard for their own lives. And, as if all of that weren't enough, half a dozen points of brilliant red light, the emanations of laser sights of hidden gunmen, flashed at us through the mist and sleet._

 _Oh, yeah. Super plan, Harry._

 _I had them right where I wanted them._

–Jim Butcher, 'Small Favor'

* * *

The cabin was almost empty, just a couple Hermes kids still asleep. I tiptoed out, and found Alice sitting on the cabin's front steps.

"Hey," she said, looking up as I closed the door. "I was wondering when you'd appear. I was beginning to think you were going to refuse to get up."

I sat down next to her, shaking my head. "No. Though it doesn't seem to matter much. I don't think my sight is going to make a lot of difference against the full weight of the apocalypse."

We sat in silence, watching people pass in and out of their cabins, listening to sounds of activity, so calm and normal. The sky was clear and blue, as though it wasn't about to fall in; the sun shone as strong as ever, as though darkness didn't exist.

"I can't believe Jack did this," Alice murmured, her eyes narrowed. "I thought he was smarter than that. Why couldn't he just overcome his pride and see that the only way to honour his wife was to _help_ us?"

I'd refined my theory about Jack. I thought he'd been driven insane by Artemis's curse and Dolos's psychic attacks, but Alice didn't need to hear that. "I don't think he realised how dangerous Tartarus is. But hell, I don't know if _any_ of us do."

"But it's not really Tartarus we're fighting," she said, her narrowed gaze turning glassy. "It's Jake. Tartarus has been imprisoned for eons. He doesn't understand humanity, he couldn't. All of the tricks and strategies… some of it is Tartarus. But I think it's mainly Jake."

I nodded. I knew she was right. We focussed on Tartarus because he was the obvious threat, the proverbial big bad wolf, but he was nothing without Jake Wilson. The son of Erebus, with his quiet, nuclear hatred, was the true strategist. He understood how the half-bloods worked because he _was_ one. Perhaps Tartarus wasn't even listening in on us, maybe Jake was just too damn good at predicting our moves.

But not _all_ of us. Me, Nico and Alice were different. We were the oddballs, the ones who'd travelled to the edge of western civilisation and witnessed the dark beginnings of Tartarus's rise. And in our separate ways, the three of us were closer to Jake than probably anyone, other than his mother, had ever been.

And that was why we were the only ones who scared him. I remembered Jake's terror when Alice had confronted him in New Mexico. I recalled that Nico was the only demigod who'd been able to match Jake's distorted powers. And my dream-meeting with him proved that he still thought I was a threat. After all, why would he try so hard to convince me that I was powerless?

But now, so little of that mattered. Jake was beyond even our ingenuity. We could do nothing except hang on and hope.

"We're going to make it," Alice muttered, in the voice of a person intoning a powerful mantra. "We can do it. We always have, and we always will. Right, Cyrus?"

I sighed, and got to my feet. "I don't know. There's a first time for everything."

* * *

I walked around camp, exchanging brief words with people, but not stopping for conversation. Last night's news had spread fast, and camp's atmosphere was how I imagined the atmosphere in a Nazi death camp had been when the doomed realised they weren't about to have a pleasant shower. This wasn't good, because any lowering of morale would reduce the half-bloods' belief in their abilities, and at this stage belief was all we had.

Still, preparations for the next assault were in full swing. I encountered Annabeth by the arts and crafts building, where she was overseeing the repairs to the watchtowers. She told me that the plan for tonight was unchanged: hold our position and wait for the pressure to ease.

"We're backed into a corner," she said, sharpening her knife with an obsessive air. "We don't have any method of escape, so we have to rely on the few strategic advantages we have left."

I nodded, and moved on. Hearing someone like _Annabeth_ use words like "escape" was frightening. That the mere notion of fleeing from our greatest sanctuary and stronghold was present in the mind of such an experienced demigod emphasised the tenuousness of our situation.

I rambled on, not paying much attention to my surroundings. I felt like I was, psychologically, working my way into a braced position, like tensing when you know a loud noise is coming, except this time the loud noise would be a bomb going off. I was accepting the changed reality confronting me, accepting that the chess game of the war had now turned into a oversized round of Russian roulette.

I ran into Zack by the lake. He was on a busman's break, plotting troop numbers whilst supposedly enjoying the sunshine.

"Hey, genius," I said, deliberately standing in the light. He looked up with expectant annoyance. "How're you feeling about the apocalypse?"

"I think we've got our Zack against the wall," he said, completely deadpan. I was tempted to kick him but felt that would be harmful to our recent truce.

"Do you think Jake will pull any more tricks?" I said, ignoring the horrible joke.

He sighed, his expression becoming more serious. "Do snakes bite? Without fail. The question is, how much venom does this serpent still have?"

Around mid-afternoon, I found myself at the training ground, where Kevin was inspecting our ground troops' weaponry. The son of Ares's technical correctness always amazed me. He'd arranged the fifty-strong force in rows of ten, and he was checking every fighter, examining their weapons, giving brief instructions. The most impressive thing was that these powerful half-bloods stood listening to him with complete trust and willingness. It was a testament to Kevin's mastery of the minutiae of combat.

I reflected on this as I stood at the edge of the arena, waiting for him to finish. By half-blood standards, Kevin was an average fighter, though by _my_ standards he was still a major badass. But his real skill was before the battle, in the preparations that often made the difference between loss and victory.

It was another fifteen minutes before the inspection finished. As the tired half-bloods left the training ground, I approached Kevin.

"What's up?" I asked. We stood by the water stand, as my friend rehydrated with the desperation of a man in the desert. Even the weather hated us. The afternoon heat was intensifying every minute. "Looking forwards to the end of the world?"

Kevin gave me a dark look as he drained one bottle and reached for another. "There's no need to be so pessimistic. One thing going wrong doesn't mean _everything_ goes to hell."

"I know that it's summertime and the waters of De Nile are nice and cool, but if you stay in there too long you'll catch idiosentery." I folded my arms. "If the piece of darkness is not a big deal, why the hell did we spend so much time in New Mexico, away from camp?"

"I know, I know." Kevin threw water on his head, then shook it off. "Look, I'm just trying to keep up a _little_ hope. We're not done until Tartarus gets the piece of darkness and heads for Olympus. Jack might still be holding out. If he hangs on for long enough, Tartarus might start running out of monsters to throw at him, us _and_ the gods. I mean, he has to be spreading his troops thin, laying siege to Jack's place, here, and Mount Olympus at the same time. If tonight goes well, we might be able to send people to New Mexico tomorrow."

I hadn't thought it possible for anyone to find any kind of reasonable hope right now, but Kevin was sounding very logical.

"Maybe that'll work out." I nodded. "It's a roll of the dice, but it's not impossible. But… well, there's two very big variables."

"There is," Kevin replied, muffled as he dried his face. "One is whether we can hold out here without sustaining serious casualties."

"And the other is whether or not Jack can hold off the monsters for another day."

We fell silent, neither of us willing to approach the latter issue. We'd seen how well-prepared the son of Hephaestus was, but his wards were going to run out, if they hadn't already. Once they fell, it wouldn't take Jane and her minions more than a few hours to tear down the whole building

I brushed off the frustration triggered by the thought of Jane, and asked, "What about us? Will we survive the night?"

He sat on the low wall that enclosed the arena, put on his glasses and picked up his sword. I sat down too, as he, like Annabeth, began to obsessively sharpen his blade.

"We weren't hurt too bad last night. We're in good shape," Kevin lapsed into his flat "military" tone. "Annabeth is putting a few people on the far side of the road, hidden by Olivia's concealment stones. That will give us an extra advantage, compared to last night. So long as we don't get caught on the back foot again, I think we'll be okay. We need to make sure Jake doesn't outfox us, though."

"I'll watch everything. If he's there, I'll see," I promised.

Kevin settled into a rhythm as he moved on to cleaning his sword. Movement on the hill caught my eye. I glanced up, and saw one of the watchtowers being pushed into position.

"What do _you_ think will happen?" He stopped cleaning. "If Tartarus makes it to Olympus with the piece of darkness? What will the gods do?"

I thought about it for a second, thinking of Jake, of my own feeling of foreboding. "I don't know. This kind of thing is unprecedented. Even when Kronos invaded Olympus, the gods weren't there. Maybe they'll band together, fight off Tartarus. It's not like they have a lot of options. But even if they do fight him… can they _beat_ him?"

Kevin started to reply, when the sound of approaching hoofbeats drew my attention. They neared quickly, and in a moment Chiron was standing over us.

"I need you both to come with me," he said, slightly out of breath. "Other preparations can be postponed. I've been talking to the gods, and there's something I need to show you."

Kevin and I exchanged quizzical glances. I got to my feet.

" _Another_ war council?" Kevin said, sheathing his sword. "Is it really necessary? I don't think we can _discuss_ Tartarus back into the pit."

"No," Chiron replied, his expression impenetrable. "This is something else."

* * *

Instead of leading us to the rec room as usual, Chiron brought us upstairs to the open door of the attic. Beyond it I heard murmuring, as half-blood counsellors discussed what on earth was going on now.

"I've told Rachel what she needs to explain," Chiron said. "I'd do it myself, but…" He waved at his legs, and then at the attic ladder.

"Why do we have to do it up there?" Kevin asked. "Did the ping-pong table quit or something?"

"What you're going to hear from Rachel needs to be completely hidden from Tartarus," Chiron replied. "I'm not sure if the son of Chaos is able to spy on us downstairs, but I'm certain that the attic is fully secure. It's still one of the Oracle's residences, so it's warded by several enchantments and sanctified by Apollo himself. Now, go."

"Alright," Kevin said, looking at me with a raised eyebrow, before climbing up the ladder. I glanced quizzically at Chiron, then went up.

The cluttered attic was even more crammed than usual, with most of the camp's council packed in, along with a few other worried-looking half-bloods and the Oracle herself. We hadn't seen much of her in the last few days, since Apollo, in his justified paranoia, had forbidden her to leave the Big House.

I started to move towards them, but Chiron called, "Cyrus."

I looked down at him.

"Close the door," he said, with uncharacteristic force. I complied, lowering the attic door back into place before clipping it shut with the gold latch.

* * *

"Come on, open it up, I'm getting old here."

I slid open the bolt on the access hatch for the roof, and pushed upwards. It swung open, and Alice and I clambered onto the top of the watchtower.

The sky was midnight blue as the vestiges of the sunset faded away, the last rays of natural light getting out of the way before the ruthless darkness of the night came rampaging in. Alice and I were resuming our position on the left-hand lookout tower. I kicked the hatch shut as I glanced around. The second tower stood next to us, its repairs finished only an hour ago, and Zack and Annabeth were already atop it. Clunks and shouts that were shaking through the tower below signalled that the archers were moving into position.

The hillside was calm and empty before me, even picturesque, apart from the large chunks of ground torn up last night. The torches, freshly lit, burned along the camp road. Three children of Hecate, two sons of Nike and four children of Dionysus were hidden by Olivia's remaining concealment stones on the far side of the road. Percy and Clarisse had been in favour of using heavyweight half-bloods as our guerrilla troops, but Annabeth had overruled them on the grounds that the less powerful demigods had a far less noticeable scent.

(First time I've seen a major combat decision made on the basis of smell, but hey, whatever it takes.)

Apart from the concealed fighters, our strategy was the same as last night. The warriors waited just below the hill's crest. We were going to let the monsters amass at the foot of the hill before triggering our remaining land-mines and traps. The timing of the detonations was crucial. Annabeth needed to maximise the damage because we didn't have enough materials to make any more explosive or traps. Unlike last night, we had one shot in our gun.

In short, though our plan was unchanged, our objective was. Instead of merely defending camp, we now sought to damage Jake's troops as much as possible.

"Getting any foresight?" I asked Alice, who was looking back at camp.

"No," she said, without glancing around. "It's quiet, but that doesn't mean much. Things are so uncertain now, the future feels like a moonlit forest shrouded in fog. I can't see anything until it's already in my face."

"Well, that's comforting. Hopefully you'll see it before it tries to _eat_ your face."

I gripped the edge of the wall, facing out over the hill. I'd spent the day keeping my sight turned right down. Using it for so long last night had been pretty exhausting. The hours of rest had taken care of that, and I was ready to use the gift again. I drew in a deep breath, and as I exhaled, everything flickered into view.

I'm not a weak-willed guy, but when I looked down at the hillside and saw what was there, I nearly fainted. I froze, resisting the urge to shut down my sight immediately. I didn't speak for a moment in case I started screaming. My hand shook as I reached up to my earpiece, tuned it to Annabeth and shut off all other bands.

"Wise Girl," I said, my voice somehow steady. "When was the last time someone crossed the camp borders?"

There was a pause, before the reply came, "About an hour ago, when the backup team went down. Why?"

I gulped again, taking a moment before giving the news, deciding how best to deliver it, as is so often my job these days. Then I said:

"Because Tartarus's monsters are all over the hillside, hidden by some kind of illusion, and I'm wondering how long they've been there."

I thought this would drive Annabeth over the edge, but for a while there was only radio silence.

"What do you see?" she said eventually, her voice emotionless. "Describe it exactly."

"There's about three hundred monsters in loose rows that stretch up the slope from the road, with the front line about three metres away from the border. The type and variety of monsters is the same as last night. They're keeping very still. The illusion is covering sight as well as sound. Jake is on the road, and I think he's running the perception barrier because his aura is burning at full power."

Alice heard me, and turned to stare down at the hill. Both she and Annabeth were silent. The quiet calm of dusk suddenly didn't seem so pleasant now. It felt more like the silence before a lightning strike. I glanced to my left. The two children of Athena were in tight discussion, their auras flared out like butterfly wings. I said nothing, waiting for the strategists' decision, still trying to calm my pounding heart.

"How close is Jake to the traps?" Annabeth came back on the line.

"Not close enough. He's in the middle of the road, and all the monsters around him will buffer him."

"I'm bringing Olivia in on this." The line fuzzed. "Olivia? Come in."

The daughter of Hecate's voice sounded in my ear. "I'm here."

"Cyrus, fill her in."

I did so, as quickly as I could. Olivia's reaction was in total contrast to Annabeth's. The daughter of Hecate started cursing under her breath at great speed. When I finished, Annabeth asked, in a calm, intellectual voice, "Would that kind of illusion be difficult to sustain?"

"It— it would," Olivia replied, after a pause. "Very difficult. The slightest disturbance will break the enchantment and cause it to disintegrate."

Silence stretched around me for a few seconds. I wondered, without much emotion, if this was the last coherent conversation I was ever going to have.

"Okay," Annabeth breathed. "Okay. I have a plan."

Normally, I'd find that statement reassuring, but when you're lying in your coffin, watching the nails get hammered in, _nothing_ is reassuring.

The line fuzzed again.

"This is Wise Girl, come in all units. Chiron, are you getting this?"

"I'm listening," the centaur's voice replied.

"We have a code red situation. Remain calm and listen closely. Tartarus's forces have snuck up on us. They're on the hill, hidden by an illusion which Jake Wilson is sustaining. There's about two, three hundred, and the front line is metres from the border."

Immediately ten or twenty people started talking at once, and my earpiece started to screech in confusion. I yanked it out before it could deafen me.

"She's going to fire the explosives," Alice muttered, glancing at me. I nodded, and put back in the earpiece. Everyone had gone quiet again, and Annabeth was giving out the orders.

"—time to argue," she was saying. "We need to disrupt the illusion and charge on the monsters at the same time. It's the only way to regain the initiative."

"How?" came Percy's voice, tense but controlled.

"Synchronisation. Kevin, be prepared to trigger all the traps on my count. Archers, get ready to fire as fast as you can. Ground troops, prepare to advance. All of you move into action when I give the order."

"You got it," replied my friend, the wobble of fear in his voice almost unnoticeable.

"Just give us a few seconds to get ready." That was Clarisse, sounding as angry as ever. Fear didn't seem to be in her emotional vocabulary, not even after her stay in the infirmary.

There was a few moments of activity as the demigods organised themselves, orders going across the radio, thuds in the tower as the archers moved around. I felt strangely powerless as I stood there with Alice, as though I were listening to a radio drama in which I had only a phone-in part. The awareness that I was the only person who could see the monsters outside made me feel even more detached.

Alice was as stiff as a statue next to me, her aura flaring and rippling in a hypnotising cycle. "Watch Jake," she said quietly. "He'll do something."

I glanced at her, nodded, and was about to reply when Clarisse came in, "Okay, we're ready."

Annabeth sighed. "Alright. On my count."

The radio went quiet, as the demigods settled into readiness. It's weird the way total silence precedes total insanity.

"Three."

I could hear only breathing, and just then, even that seemed ominous.

"Two."

Alice gripped the ledge so tight, her knuckles went chalk-white.

"One."

I focussed on Jake. His dark aura was three times its normal size as he maintained the illusion. I wondered, with a mixture of emotions that I couldn't separate, if he was about to meet his demise.

" _Engage_."

I almost forgot to duck, and Alice was too focussed to think of it, but just in time I pulled us both down. I don't know what hit my ears first: the roar of the detonation as it blew across the hill or the roars of the demigods as they surged over the crest. The blasts were even stronger than last night, as Kevin unleashed everything we had left in a single torrent of power and heat. A second series of quieter explosions fired a second later as the Demetrian and Dionysian traps triggered. The screams of the monsters rang out last of all, piercing the air with an inhuman intensity. My ears rang from the noise, and the tower shook around us. For a brief moment I feared that the whole thing would topple over into the ranks of the slavering monsters.

"Let's hope we don't get thrown down the damn hill," Alice muttered, echoing my thoughts.

A few tense seconds passed, before the tower stilled and my hearing began to clear. Now the noise of swords crashing into armour and the cries of frenzied battle replaced the sonic booms. We straightened up, and peered down at the battlefield.

The bottom half of the hill had been decimated, and Jake's illusion destroyed. The ground up to the edge of the road had been torn up in great chunks, which had in turn been blasted to smithereens. Almost all the monsters in that area had been vaporised, and the rest were injured or ensnared by the Demeter kids' vegetable traps, which exploded and blew off monsters' heads and limbs, or by the Dionysian vine cages, which wrapped around the doomed creatures with sinuous ruthlessness.

But somehow Jake himself had been untouched. He stood apart from the chaos, mere feet away from the edge of the blast radius. I looked at his aura for a second, and was clobbered by an overpowering sense of _control_. Jake was completely unruffled by what we'd just done. He was sure that he was in command of this battle. I could _feel_ his confidence in my mind more clearly than if he'd announced it to me in his usual overdramatic terms.

Then the impression faded, and I tried to hope it had just been my imagination.

Jake was staring upslope, where the monsters's numbers were still strong. Over a hundred of them were massed there, crammed next to each other like nightmarish sardines. Their guard had dropped, though, and even the most horrific of them looked surprised as the demigods fell on them with cries of fury and the archers rained down their arrows in a waterfall of destruction.

But the half-bloods didn't mow through their enemies the way I expected. The monsters began to fall, dissipating into dust and being sucked into the ground as usual, but every one of them took three, four more blows than usual to kill. I looked closer. As a demigod struck with a blade or a spear, or as an arrow hit its target, a thin aura of shadow flared around the monster, absorbing some of the energy from the attack and reducing the impact. It was similar to what I'd seen during previous battles, but much stronger. Tartarus was giving his forces additional protection that soaked up damage, making his one hundred monsters last like _three_ hundred.

"Damnit," I muttered.

"What?" Alice asked, but I was already on my earpiece.

"Everyone, listen, the monsters are being shielded by Tartarus, that's why they're harder to kill." I paused, but heard only the shouts and slashes of combat. "I don't think there's anything we can do against it, just… be aware."

"You're right, it's taking a lot more time to kill even the dracaena," Annabeth said, sounding almost disbelieving at Tartarus's ability to screw with us.

"No _shit_ ," came Percy's shout, a moment later, accompanied by a few rather more vociferous expletives from other demigods.

"Just keep pushing, we can make it. The monsters are on the back foot," Chiron said, another moment later, his voice the only calm one.

The battle raged like an indecisive fire for a couple of minutes, the demigods pushing forward a few feet, then the monsters pushing back or holding firm. I saw a couple of our fighters fall, crying out in pain, and seconds later medics darted through the melee to tend to the wounded - or dead? I couldn't tell, even with this vantage point.

"Watch Jake," Alice repeated, before I could consider that point further. "Something's coming."

I gave her a sidelong glance. The son of Erebus was standing on the road now, doing nothing more than handing out occasional orders. His aura seemed to have dwindled around him, drained from the illusion, but I nodded. "Should we tell Annabeth?"

With a roar, the half-bloods pushed forward with renewed force, their rallying cries creepily echoed by the monsters' screams as they fought back with teeth and claws. A human scream pierced the air, and I looked down in time to see a son of Ares fall, badly slashed in the face.

 _Not Kevin,_ I thought immediately, then a second later felt guilty for not caring more about all the half-bloods.

"No," Alice answered, her gaze stony. "I don't want to alarm her."

I rather felt that _that_ boat had sailed about two million monster attacks ago, but I said nothing.

I was depressed to see that some new monsters had come up the road and were now forming into a loose group at the foot of the slope. The archers were splitting their fire between two targets, the attacking forces at the top of the hill and the fifty or so troops at the bottom. Countless arrows hurtled through the air. I'd never seen the Apollo kids fire at such speed. Many of them didn't find their target, but it didn't matter. The intensity of the barrage was keeping the monsters constrained, allowing the ground troops to attack with greater force.

Jake was moving into action now, organising his new troops. Not for the first time, I wondered how the hell he'd become so _powerful_. It was just ridiculous. Had Tartarus really gifted him all that additional strength? Or were his gifts just that vast? As I watched, he marshalled the monsters around him, roaring at them, flicking shadow power through their ranks to herd them into the right formation. It wasn't going to be long before he sent them our way.

"Annabeth, you seeing this?" I said. The demigods were hanging in there, but any more pressure from the back could force them off-balance.

"I see it," she replied instantly. "Anyone who can hear me, brace yourselves, you're about to get more company. Archers, maintain the pressure. When the new monsters advance, shift your focus onto them."

She'd barely gotten that order across the airwaves when Jake screamed one of his own, at the top of his lungs: a single word, recognisable even from this distance. C _harge_.

And his monsters obeyed, charging up the slope like bats out of hell, voices raised in screeching bloodlust, fangs bared with horrific glee. The thunderstorm of arrows fell completely upon them, and many monsters were felled, but Tartarus's protection deflected a lot of damage, keeping the reinforcements' formation intact.

"Ground troops, brace yourselves, fresh meat is seconds away. Repeat, be prepared, any second now—" Annabeth shouted, on and on, a stream of warning that seemed to be having little effect. Alice leaned forward, hypnotised.

The aforesaid fresh meat slammed into the back ranks of their brethren, introducing more forward momentum to the attackers as a whole. The demigods were forced to take several steps back as Tartarus's forces bore down on them, for a brief horrific second seeming to be unstoppable.

" _Stand_ _firm_ ," Annabeth screamed. "Do _not_ retreat behind the borders, we won't _sustain_ this much pressure on the wards. Stand _firm_."

For a nanosecond, I thought we were done. The half-bloods were on the back foot, the very thing we'd been avoiding, and a little more effort would push them over. But then something happened. A roar went up, then another, then several more, ringing out in unison. Auras flared like searchlights, burning with such intensity that I thought they might be visible even to normal sight. Clarisse, at the front of the defenders, was swathed in a blinding red glow, a supernova of warrior power. She raised her spear, and yelled, inhumanly loud, " _For Olympus_!"

The cry was echoed by Percy, his blue-gold aura shining like a lighthouse in a storm, and by Kevin, and by all the other half-bloods. The air crackled with power of the purest kind, and the monsters recoiled, repelled by the energy of the demigods' belief in each other. And so, against the laws of physics, perhaps against the laws of fate itself, the dark tide was halted, and our warriors pushed back, forcing Tartarus's troops to give up the ground they'd so quickly gained.

Alice breathed a heavy sigh of relief, the first noise she'd made since the charge. "We're okay. We're going to make it."

She spoke too soon.

My earpiece fuzzed, and a scared voice said, "Anyone there? Chiron? Annabeth? This is Head of Comms. Anyone? Come in, someone."

It was Nathan, a son of Hermes, back at the Big House running the radio system. Chiron replied immediately, even as I watched him decapitate a Laistrygonian. "I'm here. What's going on?"

"What is it, Nathan?" Annabeth chimed in, sounding reluctant to hear the answer.

The radio silence stretched on for a long moment. It didn't exactly make me feel positive about the guy's news. Then he said, "I just got an Iris-Message from a Lord of the Wild who's in New Mexico."

A horrible cold feeling swept through me, like I'd been hurled from the tower and I was only just realising I was dead. I glanced at Alice, but her eyes were shut tight, her aura overwhelmed by dark shades of breaking gold.

"What did he say?" Chiron said, his tone cautious.

"He said he'd just been at the town where Jack Mills lived," Nathan said. I didn't miss the use of the past tense. "He'd heard something important had happened, and he decided to check how things were, about an hour ago."

Abruptly, Alice grabbed my arm. " _Look_ ," she hissed, pointing down the slope, as Nathan took a pause to gather himself.

My blood had already turned cold; now, it froze.

Down on the road, Jake was gathering his aura again. His hands were clasped together, as though holding onto a captured fly. His power was flowing around his body and into his hands, like petrol being poured into a bomb.

"He said he found Jack's house," Nathan's voice was continuing. "And… he said the place is on fire. Most of it is in ruins already."

The flow of power around Jake intensified, and so did my old sense of foreboding.

"Was— was there anyone else nearby?" Chiron sounded incredibly frail.

I opened my mouth to warn them, but part of me was still listening to Nathan, and had to hear him finish.

"No," he whispered, his tone desolate. "No-one. Tartarus's forces were gone. There was no sign of Jack. There was nothing."

The radio went totally silent, apart from the faint hissing of the open lines, which in that moment seemed like Tartarus himself muttering, taunting us with his victory. At the very back of my mind, I registered the news, the terrible news. Kevin had been wrong, Jack hadn't been able to last the day. The piece of darkness was gone. Our remaining hopes were now turning to ash in an inferno in New Mexico.

But all I could really think about was Jake.

"Annabeth," I interrupted Chiron, who'd begun a hopeless question. "Jake is preparing some serious mojo down there. We need to mobilise our backup crew, _right now_."

The daughter of Athena had been silent in shock, but still she responded sharply, "Right away."

She ordered the demigods hidden behind Jake to move into action - though, of course, they weren't hidden to me. They got to their feet instantly, stealing towards the son of Erebus in two groups of three. Jake still crouched, motionless. Chiron was talking again, trying to alchemically derive some grain of hope from Nathan's news, but I wasn't paying attention, transfixed now by Jake and his unseen assailants.

I was sure they were going to make it. The two sons of Nike and the daughter of Dionysus were feet away, just within striking distance, their swords rising to finally put an end to the son of Erebus's sorcery.

Then Jake moved, striking like a snake. He straightened and span on his heel, lightning-fast, power glowing in a pumpkin-sized ball around his hands. He flicked three fingers, and a blast of shadow exploded out of that gathered energy. It filled the air, hurling all six demigods to the ground with violent force. Their concealment stones skittered out of their hands, and several of them cried out in pain.

Everyone, even Chiron, gasped in horror when they saw the half-bloods flying through the air like discarded toys.

Annabeth's composure finally broke. "How the _fuck_ did he know they were coming?"

But Jake wasn't done. One of the sons of Nike staggered back to his feet, and ran at the son of Erebus. Jake stood still, letting the other guy draw closer, playing defenceless— but in the blink of an eye, he drew his Stygian sword, and impaled the half-blood through the chest. He dragged his sword back out, and the son of Nike crumpled to the ground, his aura going out in a burst of light.

Then two more demigods dashed forward, but Jake turned, knocked out one by hurling a fistful a fistful of darkness into her face, and felled the other with a slash at his legs. His back was turned to the remaining three, and they found their feet: a son of Hecate, a son of Nike and a daughter of Dionysus. They threw themselves at our enemy together, and it was impossible that he could react in time—

Yet he turned, made that flicking gesture again, and our three last hopes were flung twenty feet into the air.

They hit the ground hard, and didn't get back up.

Before anyone could react, Alice screamed into her earpiece, so loudly that my own whined in feedback, but I didn't dare take it out, just clutched my ear—

" _Olivia_!" she shrieked. "Your neutralising stone! Get it out, _right_ _now_. _Use it_."

"I don't have it," came the daughter of Hecate's voice. "I—"

"No, I have it," broke in a male voice.

And then, at the foot of the slope, Jake made a throwing gesture with his right hand, as though hurling a baseball, and a massive spiral of shadow power pulsed from his gathered energy and shot straight up the hill, a missile of unstoppable darkness.

A missile that was aimed directly at the watchtowers.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Four**

* * *

 _What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow_

 _Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,_

 _You cannot say, or guess, for you know only_

 _A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,_

 _And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,_

 _And the dry stone no sound of water. Only_

 _There is shadow under this red rock,_

—T. S. Eliot

* * *

It shot towards us so fast, I didn't even have time to think of snarky last words.

But a millisecond before Jake's shadow bomb smashed into our towers, a glowing green object streaked up from the battlefield and intersected the missile's path. The green light and the darkness mingled for a second, unfurling through each other in slow motion, like some kind of psychedelic computer graphic, turning and turning in a widening gyre.

Then, with a shuddering discharge, blinding green light filled the night, for a second shining as bright as the sun. I shut my eyes reflexively, but I felt the burning power brush against my skin, as though considering whether or not to scald me.

And as quickly as it came, the light went out. I opened my eyes, blinking away the throbbing afterburn, and looked around.

The air was clear. Jake's missile and the green object were gone, as though a god had snapped their celestial fingers and made them disappear. And all of it had happened in less than twenty seconds. Alice and I stared at each other in shocked relief.

"What the _hell_ was that?" I gasped, breathing for the first time since Jake had overcome the backup team.

Alice started grinning, somewhat manically, shaking her head. "A neutralisation rune," she chuckled.

"A what?"

"Little Hecate trick," grunted Alex in my earpiece. I caught a glimpse of him impaling a goblin-creature. "A charged rune, with the right engraved symbols, can cancel out almost any working."

I stared at Alice in disbelief. "How the hell did you think of that so _quickly_?"

"Foresight has to be useful at least once an apocalypse, right?" she shrugged, still grinning crazily.

"It was certainly useful there," Chiron spoke, sounding like a man who's just been told his wife and children did not, in fact, die in the burning building. "But keep focused, we're not safe yet. Cyrus, how's Jake looking?"

I turned back to the battlefield. Jake wasn't looking happy. He'd wasted most of his gathered power on that shot. He was on one knee, staring up at us, fury throbbing through his drained aura. Some concentrated shadow power still shimmered in his right hand, somehow glinting in the darkness.

And as I watched, he shook himself, stood up, and started walking up the hill.

"Um," I said, my relief being shoved out of the way by a fresh stampede of fear. "I'm guessing we only have one of those magic neutralisation rocks?"

"They're very hard to get," Alex answered. "Even harder to make. I know there's a second one, but it's on the other side of the planet."

He'd barely finished delivering that unsurprisingly depressing news when Jake started running up the hill like a demon.

(For a brief, dejected second I was tempted to just hurl myself off the tower and have done with the whole disaster. Then again with my luck I'd _survive_ the jump.)

I pulled myself together with a snap. "For Christ's sake. Listen, Jake has some power left, and he's running up here to throw it in our faces. We need to do something _fast_."

Without hesitation, Annabeth said, "Archers, concentrate fire on Jake Wilson. Do not let him get any closer."

She gave the order to execute the son of Erebus with perfect calm, but I caught a note of resignation. She didn't believe it would be so easy. Sure enough, all the archers shifted their full focus to the running man, driving down the arrows without restraint, but he just kept coming. Somehow, not a single arrow touched him. Every one that got close just brushed off his aura like a feather hitting the side of a tank. Whatever protection Tartarus had given the monsters, he'd also given it to Jake at a hundred times the strength.

And still he came, shaping the power in his hand as he moved. All our options were gone. I watched, helpless, as he reached the back ranks of his monsters.

"Demigods, get down," Annabeth yelled into the radio, desperation cracking her voice. "There's a major ballistic coming your way, get down _now_."

Shouts of confusion and warning filled the radio and the air, even as Jake got up onto the shoulders of a Laistrygonian.

And now, just as he had when he'd killed Peleus, the son of Erebus glanced skyward for a second, and looked right in my eyes. Even more sharply than before, I felt that taunt, that disdain at how easily he could overcome our supposed might. And there was a sense, too, a horrible sense, of the idea that all this, all this darkness, had been summoned merely so that the light I dared to bring could be snuffed out.

Then he broke away, and the moment of implausible communication shattered into a hundred scattered thoughts. Most of the half-bloods threw themselves on the ground, as Annabeth kept shouting and as Jake hurled his gathered power into their midst.

A shockwave almost as strong as those caused by the land-mines blew through the demigods and monsters, tossing some into the air, knocking others over, flinging a few together with painful crunches. The organisation of our defensive lines was broken as the demigods were thrown around, like pieces on a chessboard that's been thrown from the table. A few monsters were flung into the demigods' midst, causing further alarm. Only the troops at the very back of both armies remained on their feet.

" _Back on your feet!_ " Annabeth shrieked, panic taking hold. " _Get back on your feet_."

A lot of the half-bloods got upright immediately, but many were unconscious or dazed, and the chain of command had been smashed - the camp counsellors at the front had taken the worst of the blast, and many of them were out cold. Even those who were standing looked dizzy and shaky, as they tried to get their bearings. From up here, they looked a little ridiculous, as they swayed and reeled like damaged puppets, but I knew the experience on the ground would be a couple skulls short of pure hell.

As if to confirm my thoughts, Jake, still atop the Laistrygonian, roared an order, and the remaining monsters began to advance on our broken defence.

"Oh my gods," Alice whispered.

The two of us could only watch, our gifts useless, as the remains of Tartarus's army, so nearly destroyed, began to claim victory.

Several demigods were killed immediately. Two children of Ares, still dazed on the ground, were decapitated without a second glance by dracaena. Those half-bloods who were upright were quickly surrounded, and while they span and hacked like demons, the odds were ranged against them. An agonising scream drove through my skull like a white-hot needle. I looked down at the foot of our tower in time to see Anna Fields, my friend and counsellor from the very first day I'd come to camp, fall under a blow to her head from a Laistrygonian's club.

For a long moment, I was sure it was over. The monsters had all the momentum, and our forces were disintegrating. Even Annabeth had stopped giving orders. She could only watch in disbelieving horror as the battle became a slow execution. Five, six demigods were gone already. Chiron was dashing through the fray, doing what he could, which wasn't much. Some half-bloods were forming units around the wounded, but only the borders were keeping the monsters from overrunning us instantly.

And then, through the darkness, through the screams of pain, through the horrified rush of my own thoughts, I heard a high, pure sound, one that I hadn't heard in a long time, but one that I recognised immediately.

Someone was blowing a horn, a _silver_ horn, and its bright noise was ringing through the night, and now it was being joined by other blasts of sound, as a call to action rang across Half-Blood Hill, a call to fight.

The call, in fact, to hunt.

The Hunters had arrived.

They emerged from the shadows like spirits sent by the moon itself to save this sanctuary from the army of darkness. A second ago they'd been nowhere to be seen. Now Artemis's Hunters were streaming up the hill, their silver clothing bright even in this dark, and I'd never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

"They came," Annabeth whispered, in the tone of someone being shown the way out of her own tomb. " _They came_."

Within seconds they reached the top of the hill, falling on Jake's forces before he could hear them coming.. The son of Erebus dropped from his Laistrygonian and stared around in shock as the Hunters started to hack their way through the fray. His aura shook as he cursed them, cursed this stroke of luck that was about to turn his victory into a defeat.

Then he looked around at his monsters, who'd halted their attack at they realised _they_ were now the ones who were surrounded. Jake turned his back on the Hunters, and I saw that he had a little of that gathered power in his right hand - not much, but enough. He nodded to himself, and made a sweeping gesture at his troops, just as the Hunters began to press the offensive with real intensity.

A rushing sound coursed across the hilltop, like the sudden wind that blows the hat from your head, and the shadows of the night engulfed the invaders. I blinked, and they were gone, even as the last of the Hunters came upslope.

We'd survived.

"I don't believe it," Annabeth whispered, her voice ghost-like in my ear.

"Yeah, you _run_ , bitch!" Percy shouted.

Alice slumped against the ledge, her aura close to invisible from exhaustion.

"We're okay," she muttered, over and over. "We're okay."

The medics moved into action, spreading across the hill as Hunters rushed to join them. A lot of half-bloods were down, but I couldn't tell how many were dead and how many were only injured. Most of the counsellors seemed to be alive. I saw Percy picking Leo up, as blood ran from a gash in the son of Hephaestus's legs. The son of Poseidon's face was red with blood from a cut to his brow and a scratch on his cheek. Nearby, Kevin and Alex were tending to Olivia, who'd taken Jake's blast pretty hard.

My gaze strayed to the bottom of our tower. Anna lay there, her lifeless eyes staring up at me, seeming to reproach the onlooker for looking at her in such a vulnerable position. Blood trickled from her head wound, and an arm was crumpled horribly under her back. Her aura - so full of energy and mischief in life, with rolling greens and flickering reds - was gone, snuffed out by a moment's violence.

Against my will, tears filled my eyes. My relationship with Anna had always been more antagonistic than anything else, and she'd never been the best at giving useful advice, but she'd been an important part of my camp life. She'd been here since the start, and though she'd never been a great friend, she had never condemned me because I was mortal.

And now she was gone, along with whoever else the monsters had dragged down.

I lowered my head, gripping the ledge to keep from trembling. How many lives would have to be lost before this infernal war ended? Was I going to lose _all_ my friends, until there was nothing left, and only I stood against Jake and Tartarus? That sense of separation I'd had last night, the sense of isolation from the surrounding world, recurred to me now. For a passing moment, it was like the entire world was disintegrating around me, exploding into clouds of chaotic debris yet leaving me untouched.

"That was so close." Alice's low voice brought me back to earth. "I can't believe we got through it."

I glanced around. She sat on the floor, calm mostly restored to her aura.

"I think we've seen the worst of it," she went on, looking up. "We were so close to being finished, but we put a huge dent in Jake's forces. There's no way he'll recover his numbers enough to really threaten us again."

Such hopeful thoughts were tempting, but futile. I sighed, and shook my head. "It's not that simple. Did you hear Nathan?"

Alice paled. I felt a little guilty at taking her moment of optimism away, but there wasn't much choice anymore.

"Oh," she murmured, covering her face with a hand. "I forgot about that."

"Yeah. Easy thing to do, in the middle of an apocalyptic battle."

The medics, the Hunters and the uninjured half-bloods had finished tending to the dead and treating the wounded. They were moving back into camp now in a slow convoy, returning the casualties to safety.

"Tartarus has the piece of darkness," I went on, looking at the devastated, empty hillside. "Maybe he doesn't have it at this moment, but he'll have it very soon. He'll head for Olympus. After that… well, we're going into uncharted territory. But one thing is for sure. This battle won't be our last, or our worst."

I looked Alice in the eye as she got to her feet. "But what I'm worried about," I said, "is that the next one will."

* * *

Normally our wounded are treated in the infirmary, but tonight we had too many casualties for that. The first floor of the Big House was transformed into a makeshift hospital as the children of Apollo, and an overworked son of Asclepius, tended to our damaged comrades. So big was the job that every unhurt child of Apollo, even those with little medical skill like Alice, were recruited to help. Luckily the Hunters also had considerable medical talent, and they pitched in without hesitation. Led by Chiron, and aided by two daughters of Ares who had some kind of battlefield-medic gift, the team took two hours to stabilise everyone.

Those of us who had no medical skill were kept out of the farmhouse. Some just headed for bed, exhausted by the relentless night. But many waited outside the Big House, hanging on with morbid curiosity to find out how bad our losses really were. I spent the time on the porch steps with Kevin and Alex. It was a subdued couple of hours. Both of them were waiting to learn if their siblings were going to be alright.

"I just don't understand how _one guy_ was able to put us on our knees like that," Kevin shook his head. "How can Jake have so much power? It's obscene."

Alex sat on the step above us. His T-shirt was ripped and some of his shoulder-length hair had been cut off by a literal close shave, but he was otherwise unharmed. "I got a sense of his power when he was up on that Laistrygonian," he said, his green eyes dim with tiredness. "There's something very dark all around him, like an enchantment, but normally when someone's enchanted they're not in control."

"But he is?" I asked.

Alex nodded. "He's in control, and I can't even tell if he's put the enchantment on himself. Anyway, it's giving him some serious juice. Even at the end of the battle, he had enough left to shadow-travel the monsters away." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm not saying he can't be beaten, but we would need someone with similar powers, someone like—"

"Nico," I supplied. I wondered if the son of Hades had even woken yet.

We talked over the battle some more, but none of us mentioned the piece of darkness. We didn't dare approach the radioactive elephant in a room where the roof had already gone on fire. We did, however, discuss what we were going to do when Jake came back.

"It comes down to how seriously our forces have been reduced," Kevin said, kneading his brow. "If we've lost more than a third, we're going to need a radical change of tactics, but we don't have long to put a new plan together."

"And we haven't got any surprise tricks left in the bag, either," Alex was grim. "We've got our swords and our courage. What happens if we get blindsided again? I don't know, man, maybe we'd be better off leaving camp, breaking up into small groups so Tartarus has nothing to fight. At least then we'll be _alive_."

"But how would we work together, how would we fight back?" I asked. "He's not going to just go away if _we_ disappear. We can't run from this."

Kevin shook his head and started to reply, when the door swung open behind us. We stood up quickly, as Chiron emerged, the Hunters' lieutenant Thalia Grace and our head medic Owen Creag behind him. The other half-bloods nearby gathered around.

Chiron was clearly exhausted, but his voice was steady as he spoke. "We've done all we can for now. The extent of the damage is clear." He paused, looking at us all for a moment, preparing us for the news with his steady gaze. "Ten half-bloods are dead."

Ten.

Dead.

There was a second of deep silence, soon fractured by jagged cries of shock and anger. Several people demanded the names of the deceased, but Chiron raised a hand for quiet.

"I will give the names of those who've died tomorrow, at breakfast," he said. "All of you need to rest, because tomorrow night we will face the hardest battle ever fought at this camp. Over a third of our half-bloods were injured tonight, and most of them will be unfit for combat tomorrow. We will face Tartarus's attack with reduced numbers, and I believe the situation will worsen further before then, because the son of Chaos will soon have the piece of darkness."

People started talking again, Alex among them, angry, demanding more information, but Thalia stepped forward.

It was four in the morning, and the night sky was grim with cloud, but the daughter of Zeus seemed to be bathed in her personal shaft of moonlight. Her aura, like that of all the Hunters, was beyond a normal demigod's, because it contained some of Artemis's own godly power. But the total silence that fell as Thalia glared at us was nothing to do with her aura, and all to do with her strength of presence. As I looked into her determined eyes, it was easy to see why she, and no other, was the leader of Hunters.

"I understand your pain," she said. "This is war. It's the same when I lose one of my sisters. It's horrible. But you cannot let that hinder your preparations or your judgement. The time for grieving will be after we defeat the son of Chaos, but for now, we need to concentrate on sending him back to the pit where he belongs."

She stepped back, the half-bloods' emotions somewhat quenched by her words. People began filing away, heading for their beds. Chiron and the others went back inside, sorrow vivid in their faces.

I turned, and followed Kevin and Alex to the cabins.

* * *

One of the great things about being mortal is that I don't get the psychedelic vision dreams that half-bloods have to deal with. I'd heard plenty of stories about the dramatic, harrowing experiences that demigods endure in sleep, and I was very, _very_ relieved to have escaped that particularly godly gift.

But when I went to sleep after the second battle of Camp Half-Blood, I had strange, dark dreams unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Not even my psychic meeting with Jake had been as disturbing as this.

If anything, they were more like psychic snapshots than anything else. It began with fire, intense golden flames in a circle around me, as though I was trapped in a burning building. It reminded me of the illusion Tartarus had cast at the Edge of the West, but this felt even more authentic. I could hear the snapping wood, and beyond the flames, great crashing sounds, as though someone was tearing down a vast structure.

I seemed to stand there for a long time, just watching, waiting for a fate I'd accepted as inevitable. Then a shapeless figure approached me through the chaos, wielding a long blade, and this figure was almost upon me when the smell of smoke abruptly suffocated me, and the dream changed.

I was somewhere else, someplace very far away, deep in a distant mountain far from any human life. I could see nothing, but I felt a dark presence close by, the way animals sense the approach of a predator. A sudden rush of violent pleasure swept through the darkness, dazing me, and now I was moving, blurring across the world, bolting from shadow to shadow, racing towards some prize finally obtained.

Then it stopped, and I was there, in Jack's room, looking through his eyes as he watched a giant figure formed of churning shadows reach down to the desk and pick up a wooden box that was tiny in those monstrous hands. With a massive, crooked finger, it slid open the box, and—

Screaming darkness filled the air, occupied everything, as though every atom of the universe had been consumed by trillions of monsters. I tried to move, escape, but I had no body, only consciousness which twisted and tugged against the storm of malevolence. My senses were useless now. I could see nothing, and my hearing was so overwhelmed by the pervasive shrieking that I might as well have been deaf, hell I started to wish I was—

And now I was moving again, far faster than ever before, skittering across the surface of the earth like a stone across a lake, heading for my - _his_ \- final destination with burning, malicious triumph.

Then it came before me. Olympus, glistening in all its fragile glory, raised above all men. For an implausible, mind-breaking moment, I was floating in mid-air, watching from afar as the figure of Tartarus loomed next to the mountain, side-lit by the strengthening light of the dawn; but simultaneously I _was_ Tartarus, staring upon Olympus, feeling my rediscovered power boil around me, so intense, like being at the centre of a nuclear explosion over which I had only tenuous control.

With a roar that split the world, I - Tartarus - rushed forward, and the shadows filled everything, but this time the darkness was silent, devoid of any torment, or any life.

* * *

I slept for a while. Peaceful sleep, with no nightmares, spectral visions or unwanted psychic encounters. Looking back, I see that unconsciously I knew what was coming, and I was preparing myself.

I awoke around 9, before the rest of my cabin. Without really thinking about it, I got up and dressed. It was early, I'd slept four hours, but I couldn't lie there, thinking about last night, about my dream, about tonight. Moments later I was clothed and heading out of the Hermes cabin. The others were all asleep, their demigod systems recovering after the battle.

Camp was similarly quiet, with hardly any half-bloods to be seen. Perhaps they were all in the grip of nightmares like I'd been, or maybe they were lying awake, contemplating their current proximity to their deaths.

Either way, I had a few minutes of peace and quiet. I wandered, struck by strong _deja vu_. The last time I'd walked through a silent camp like this had been when I'd first come here, when I'd known so little of who I was, even less of the gods' world, and nothing at all of Jake Wilson.

I knew a lot more now, but even knowledge didn't seem to matter anymore.

The calm in the air was like the stillness between the heaves of storms. Such a peace was almost worse than battle, because this moment of calm bore within it the reminder that it would soon be destroyed by a fresh tide of violence. I floated along, paying no attention to direction. I was loose and free in these moments of safety, yet I was also as tense and focussed as I would be when on the battlefield. My thoughts flickered through my mind, never settling, like glimpses of a landscape flying past a train window, never slowing down to be scrutinised, always lingering just enough to be unsettling.

Last night's deaths. My fractured dreams. Our broken future. These things recurred to me, over and over, but I could not face them, could not confront them. The deaths I could not comprehend, my dreams I would not believe, our future I dared not consider.

I looked up, and stopped abruptly. The shock of unexpected recognition cut through me,. Without even thinking about it, I'd walked to the lakeside, to the exact spot from where, two years ago, I'd watched Jake Wilson board a bus with Nico and Alice, watched him embark upon his journey of destruction.

As I had then, I looked up at the hill, empty now apart from the towers and the border guards. I remembered that morning like it was two _days_ ago, not years. I'd recognised Jake's aura from afar, and suspected that he was on the mission to retrieve the Flame of Olympus, but I hadn't been sure. I'd hoped I was wrong. The naive part of me had wanted to believe that fate was kinder than that.

If I'd been smart and gone to Chiron right then, so much could have been different. Jake could have been restrained, even imprisoned, and this war would have never gone so badly. But I hadn't made up my mind, I hadn't believed in my sight, and I'd let the son of Erebus set these events in motion.

Some could even say that the entire war, in the dark form that it had taken, was a consequence of my inaction.

I felt sicker, more disgusted, than I had for a long time.

As I stood there, at Camp Half-Blood's lake, on the spot where I'd made one of my many mistakes, I swore to myself I would never again hold from acting. I would do whatever I had to, take any opportunity, overcome any foe, pay any price, so long as I could undo my failures, and defeat Jake Wilson and his dark master.

I owed it to the demigods, but most of all I owed to Hestia. She'd believed in me, still did, and I hadn't done much to earn that confidence.

On instinct, I turned, and headed for the Big House.

* * *

The infirmary was packed.

All the beds were full. Some less critical patients were on mattresses on the floor, while many more had been put in rooms throughout the Big House. Most were asleep, and those who were awake paid me little notice as I tiptoed to the back of the room, where the partition still hid Nico from view.

I slipped through the curtain, and once more found myself at the son of Hades's bedside. He lay on his side, breathing slow. I sat down, and took a look at his aura. I was amazed by how much it had improved since I'd last visited. It wasn't near its usual intensity, but it had doubled in size, and regained some vibrancy. The recovery was huge, considering his level of exhaustion. I had had the unspoken fear that he would just fade away, but I saw now that he was clawing back his strength with his usual stubborn zeal.

I shook my head. "Nico," I murmured. "You're the Prince of the Underworld, and yet you fight death harder than anyone I've ever met."

His eyes opened.

"Well, if I die, I'll be stuck with my dad for eternity," he whispered, looking at me. "And that isn't exactly an inviting prospect."

I stared at him.

He looked back at me, not moving, amusement sparking in his dark eyes.

"You're awake," I said as though he'd ask me to confirm the fact.

"Am I? I wasn't sure. I think I'm still dreaming. Having a nightmare, actually. There's no way you're the first person I talk to after being gone for a year. Go away, maybe then I'll wake up."

I couldn't help it. I laughed.

"Why is that?" I said, leaning forward. "Am I too smart for you?"

Nico wrinkled his nose. "No, man, but like, seriously… you're a _mortal_."

"I'm beginning to think you're _im_ mortal," I shook my head again. "How the _hell_ are you alive? How did you survive? How are you even _awake_?"

Nico drew in a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He lay still, thinking, or keeping me waiting, I could never be sure with him. Then he said, "I'm not sure. Jake had me for a year, right? I know he tried to brainwash me, tried to break me. For a while it worked. He interrogated me. He used me in battles. But I managed to regain some control, and he had to keep me imprisoned. I don't know how I got away. I woke up here yesterday. The last thing I remember before that is being chained up in his cellar."

I frowned. "But… you must have made a break for it, right?"

"Probably." He opened his eyes. "I must have. I probably used my power a _lot_. Sometimes if I push myself way, way over my limit, it causes memory loss. It's happened before. So long as I'm not brain damaged, I should be okay." He gave me a sharp look. "I'm _not_ brain damaged, am I?"

I shook my head. "No. although your brain is so scrambled by now, any more damage would merely improve it."

Nico started to sit up, and opened his mouth to deliver a trademark retort, when I heard a whisper of noise behind me. I glanced around in time to see Chiron roll through the curtain in his wheelchair.

"Chiron," I said, blinking at him, feeling inexplicably uneasy.

"So you're the _second_ person I see after a year of captivity," Nico said, as the centaur wheeled to the end of the bed. "I guess it's an improvement. But, sorry, man, not a big one."

Chiron looked strained and exhausted, but somehow he managed a genuine smile. "I'm glad to have the chance to enliven your day, Mr. di Angelo." He surveyed Nico for a moment, who was now propped up on his pillows. The demigod looked back at him, waiting.

"It's good to have you back, Nico," Chiron went on. "I always knew you were valuable, but it wasn't until you were taken that I realised exactly _how_ valuable. Things have been a great deal more challenging without you."

I looked at Chiron in surprise. He'd never shared this with me. But then, why would he? Nico looked pleased, but a little discomfited. There was something in the centaur's tone that suggested he was building up to what he really wanted to say.

"So I have to vanish and be imprisoned by an evil enemy for a year to get the respect I deserve," Nico said. "Hell's bells, next time I'll know what to do when I'm being underappreciated. No, I get it. I'm glad to be back. But what's going on? Why do you both look so grim? I hear we're under siege?"

I thought I'd been doing a good job of hiding my gloom, but apparently I was a terrible actor. Chiron shared a defeated glance with me. Obviously he'd been trying to do the same.

"Things are bad," he said, folding his arms. "I came here to update you. We're under siege from Jake's forces right now, and we've barely survived the first two attacks. Tartarus has gained an important artefact, a piece of darkness, which is—"

"I know about the pieces of darkness," Nico interrupted, gesturing. "Skip the explanation, it's fine."

I stared at him in shock, and then at Chiron, who looked as taken aback as I felt. How could the son of Hades know about _that_? I somehow doubted Tartarus had given him a crash course in hidden mythology during the last year, and Hades didn't strike me as the _story-time_ type of dad.

"Very well," Chiron said, trying to hide his confusion. "Tartarus has, despite our best efforts, regained one of those pieces of darkness. That places us in a very dangerous position."

"But we have a little hope," I interjected, more for my sake than Nico's. "If we hold out until the gods confront Tartarus, we might be able to—"

"No," Chiron cut me off, sounding, for the first time since I'd known him, truly anguished. He met my gaze and shook his head, his mask of calm falling apart. His eyes were full of despair, and I saw that for once he wasn't sitting bolt upright in his chair. If anything, he was slumped, dejected.

 _Defeated_.

"That's why I came here," he said, glancing between me and Nico. "I had a feeling you'd be here, Cyrus, I wanted to tell the two of you first. I heard the news fifteen minutes ago."

"What?" Nico said, sitting up straighter in bed, sarcasm laid aside.

Chills were running through me like freezing electric currents. What in all the worlds could make Chiron look so terrible? Even last night he hadn't been like this. "What is it? What's happened?"

He took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. When he spoke, his voice was calm.

"I received an emergency message from Iris, goddess of the rainbow. She told me that Tartarus travelled across the country in the night, and reached Olympus an hour ago. The gods sensed his approach, they saw the extent of his power, and they fled the citadel before he could engage them in combat."

Nico and I stared at him in horror. I thought of my dreams, which I'd dismissed, not because I thought they were untrue, but because I didn't dare believe the reality they'd disclosed.

"They left Olympus?" the son of Hades said, his voice weak. "They _fled_?"

Chiron nodded, his face colourless. "All of them. The spirits, the minor gods, and all the Olympians. They ran from their home rather than face the son of Chaos's wrath. Iris is the only one who's contacted me. She doesn't know where any of them are. Nor does she know what's happened to Mount Olympus, now that it hangs empty."

Everything around us was so calm, so quiet. It was an implausible calm, unfitting for the news we were hearing. This was the news of the end of the world, and we were sitting here in peace, discussing it as we would anything else.

"But what does this mean?" Nico asked, his eyes wide.

Chiron didn't say anything for a long moment. He sat there in his wheelchair, for once looking like he belonged in it.

"The sanctity of Olympus has been broken," he said finally. "Even if Tartarus does no harm to it, the gods' decision to flee means that the structure of power that binds the world of Greek mythology to Western civilisation has been cracked in its very foundation. The consequences of this are greater than even I can comprehend, but I know this: our borders are going to fail. With all the gods unseated from their thrones, with the possible exception of Hades, the power that sustains this camp's defences is reduced to almost nothing."

"Just like _that_?" Nico said, angry. He moved as though to get up, but stopped himself. "That doesn't make _sense_. What about the _Fleece_?"

"It makes sense," Chiron replied. "Camp Half-Blood is a representation of the covenant between the Olympians and mankind, an unspoken agreement that the two will work together to guard civilisation against the forces that seek to overthrow it. By fleeing before Tartarus, king of the monstrous darkness, the gods have reneged on their side of the bargain, and so the covenant is broken. In that sense, Camp Half-Blood no longer exists."

He paused, lowering his gaze, and spoke much more quietly.

"Even my role no longer exists now. From this moment, I am as mortal as any of you."

" _What_?" Nico said. This shocked him more than anything else. "You mean— you can _die_?"

Chiron nodded.

Nico just gaped, shaking his head, not speaking. I sat there, overwhelmed. This was the final loss of hope, the ultimate obliteration of our chances. This was defeat, and it was far more complete and rapid than I'd imagined possible.

"So what happens now?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

"The borders have most likely already failed," Chiron said, looking at me steadily even as his own voice quivered. "Jake will strike again at sundown. Our resources are nearly consumed, and our forces are reduced. Only the arrival of the Hunters has allowed us to survive this long. We will face the attack. We will defend this place with what little we have left. Tartarus will most likely gift his troops with some of his fresh power. We will fight for each other, for ourselves, and for civilisation, because we have no choice." He paused, tears appearing in the corners of his eyes, but he didn't falter when he said, "And so, more likely than not, we will all be killed, because there is no hope."


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Five**

* * *

 _(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),_

 _And I will show you something different from either_

 _Your shadow at morning striding behind you_

 _Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_

 _I will show you fear in a handful of dust._

—T. S. Eliot

* * *

People always think that the approach of death will make them scream, or cry out in rage.

It doesn't.

Death makes you quiet. Very, very quiet.

In the hours before nightfall, Camp Half-Blood was close to silent. The demigods did what they could to prepare for darkness, and they spoke only when necessary. The only sounds in camp were those of occasional shouted orders, or the noise of equipment being moved into position.

We didn't hold meetings. There wasn't any point. Chiron personally spread the news of the fall of Olympus through camp, telling individual counsellors and letting them pass the word along. I sat with Nico for a while, but we didn't say much. We were too shocked.

Well, Nico was shocked. I wasn't, not really. I'd known what my dream had meant even before Chiron came to us. I just hadn't been willing to recognise the disaster I'd witnessed through my fragmented visions. No, I wasn't surprised. I was just afraid. Everything that had happened up to this point made sense to me now. Tartarus's demand for the piece of darkness. His tactical use of his forces. His subtle manipulations. I saw that a great strategy had played out around us, and all our actions had been mere pebbles ricocheting off the shell of the shadow-lord's war machine.

Now we were at the end of that great plan, at the culminating point of Jake and Tartarus's schemes, and I was terrified because I had no idea what was going to happen to us. Were we going to be killed, slaughtered without a second thought? Or were some of us going to be imprisoned, even used against the gods as bait to draw out the escaped Olympians who were now fugitives in their own land?

The only thing I was certain of was that there was no escape, and as nightfall drew near, it was clear that the half-bloods agreed with me. You could tell by how none of them were discussing options, or plans, or even hopes.

When _demigods_ stop trying to find ways to survive, you really _are_ screwed.

I spent most of the afternoon with Kevin, by the lakeside, watching the meagre preparations go on about us. The son of Ares had nothing to do: the Hephaestus kids were repairing any damaged weaponry, and no-one was interested in training drills. A few hours' more practice wasn't going to make a whole lot of difference at this point. More than anything, there was a sense that every half-blood was using this time to accept their fates.

So the two of us sat there, talking about things, even about strategy. Annabeth and Chiron had formed a rough idea that not even the imaginative could call a plan.

"We're going to hang on as long as possible," Kevin told me, lying on his back, eyes closed as the sun glared into his face. "We'll go out to face them before they reach camp, and slow them down. When they push us back, we'll retreat in stages, delaying their advance as much as we can. Eventually we'll have to surrender Half-Blood Hill and fall back into camp itself, and there we'll hold our position until the end. If we fight hard enough, we might be able to repel Tartarus's forces for another day. We have the Hunters, and Chiron thinks the residual energy from the borders will interfere with the monsters' connection to Tartarus once they reach the hilltop."

"You _really_ think that's possible?" I said, sitting with my legs crossed, looking down at him. "You think we can fight them off again?"

Kevin was silent for a long time, his expression so still that he could have dozed off in the summer warmth. Eventually, he replied, without emotion, "There's a chance. But the problem is that even if we hold off the monsters tonight, they'll be back. Tartarus has risen. He can summon fresh forces for as long as he needs. Not even Hades can stop that. He can keep this siege going forever."

"Unless we find a way to take him out," I said, staring into the lake. There was no-one on the water now, and even the nereids had disappeared. "That's the only way out of this."

"But how can we take him out if we need to be here to defend the only place we control, and hell, if we can't even get _away_ from here?"

A thought, wild and barely-formed, passed through my mind, but I dismissed it immediately. It was implausible, and anyway Tartarus was bound to have thought of it already.

"Yeah." I heaved a sigh. "You're right."

"And another thing worries me," Kevin said, after a while.

"What's that?"

"Rhea. She and her lackeys have been lying low for months, just making guerrilla attacks here and there, but they haven't had the chance to do anything really threatening. I'm worried, now the gods are gone and we're in a weak position, Xavier will take advantage of the power vacuum. Even if there _was_ some way out of here, what would we do if we had to face _two_ enemies at once?"

He sighed, and straightened up, opening his eyes.

"There'll be just one good thing about tonight," he muttered, passing a hand over his face.

"What's that?"

"It'll be peaceful when it's over," Kevin replied, giving me a gallows-humour grin. "Nobody ever bothers you when you're dead."

* * *

At around four o'clock, we started moving the cabins.

Not all of them, of course, but any cabin that wasn't nailed down and that was light enough to be pushed along the ground was moved across camp. This meant most of the minor cabins, and two of the major ones. It turned out that the Hephaestus building had retractable wheels so that it could be rolled across camp.

It took two hours to move them all, two long, effortful hours, the work conducted in near-silence. In the end, we had ten cabins standing in a row at the foot of the hill. I couldn't help thinking of Hestia as we turned our former homes into our last line of defence.

After that, we had the most subdued dinner I'd ever seen anywhere. Most barely even ate, they just picked at their food, talking in murmurs. My table was one of the worst. With Anna gone, the group was broken, the centre ripped out in a moment's horror, yet no-one dared to mention it. Nathan was acting counsellor, but he sat in his usual place, not so much as glancing at Anna's empty spot at the top of the table.

But despite the sorrow and the fear, there was a sense of resolve in the air. Perhaps we were doomed, but none of us were surrendering, even to a fate that was clearly inescapable. It wasn't in the nature of half-bloods to give up. They'd lost hope, and victory was an impossibility, but so was ceasing to struggle.

At least they differed from their parents in that regard.

The only group with any enthusiasm was Artemis's. The Hunters were poised and even a little confident, not sharing the dark outlook held by those of us who'd been fighting for days already. Thalia sat among them, discussing things animatedly, and I wondered if it was really possible that she and her fellow warrior-nuns could save us.

When the meal was over, or, more accurately, when most people had stopped pretending to be hungry, Chiron got to his feet.

"Heroes," he began. The defeat I'd seen in him this morning was gone, replaced by a convincing mask of resolve. "Tonight, we confront our greatest challenge. Never before have we faced such a powerful enemy with so little support. Of all our allies, only the Hunters of Artemis are with us now."

Chiron bowed his head at their table, and Thalia inclined hers in return.

"It is, I know, an impossible task," he went on, looking around the pavilion, meeting each person's eyes. "Even if we drive Tartarus's forces away from our home tonight, it will only be the start of a much longer conflict. The gods are now scattered across the West. The son of Chaos is preparing to snuff out the light of civilisation. Should we survive tonight, it will fall to us alone to defeat Tartarus, and to restore the gods to their place."

The words of the _prontos profiteia_ echoed in my mind: _True power, the darkness will gain,/While the gods shall face eternal pain._

"But we have not been defeated until the final hero falls," Chiron went on, his voice raising, fists clenching. "Tartarus has not won until we are vanquished, until we have no possible way to strike back. We failed to stop the son of Chaos from regaining his ancient power, but perhaps things were always meant to be this way. Perhaps it is only by facing down Tartarus when he is at his strongest that we can truly defeat him."

He paused, still looking around the pavilion, daring us to agree or deny. "If we fall tonight, we will do so in the knowledge that we have done everything in our power to repel the darkness. We die only when we have done all we can to live."

A few cheers, the first enthusiastic noises since the previous night, began to sound through the pavilion.

"We will not be cowed, and we will not flinch as we stand against the tide," Chiron said, raising one fist. " _We_ are the defenders of the west, and we will fulfil that role, despite its dangers."

The cheers were getting louder now, spreading from table to table.

"If Olympus has fallen, and we can no longer fight for it," Chiron was almost shouting now, as the noise grew, "we can fight for ourselves, our survival. We can fight for each other, for our friends, and for our families, whose lives will be destroyed should Tartarus gain a grip on this land. We can fight for civilisation, to which the son of Chaos is a sworn enemy. We can fight, beyond anything else, for _humanity_ , and its freedom from the menace of the dark!"

The shouts reached a crescendo, and the pavilion erupted, all of us joining in, surging to our feet and shouting up, out, at the sky, shaking our fists and expressing our wordless defiance at the dark, even as the sun began its descent into obscurity and the shadows of the night started to form around us.

* * *

The ten of us stood in a loose line, staring down the road, waiting for the monsters to show themselves. About a quarter of mile behind us, another ten half-bloods were doing the same thing. Half-Blood Hill was halfway between the two groups.

It was dusk. A warm glow in a distant part of the sky was all that remained of the sun. We'd extinguished most of the torches along the road. The last two sat on either side of us, casting an eerie upward light.

"I don't hear anything," said Percy, a few steps in front of us, squinting down the road.

"I really don't like this," said Alex, next to me. The son of Hecate had been plenty exuberant when we'd left the hill, but after ten minutes' waiting, he was getting edgy. His aura flickered and flared like a candle. "What if they sneak up around us? We'll be surrounded."

I glanced at Alex, then to our left and right. We were surrounded by rough grassland, with no possible coverage for any would-be commando monsters. He didn't notice my pointed look, and kept muttering his nervous thoughts, glancing around as though Tartarus himself was about to drop out of the sky.

"Anything?" Annabeth said in our earpieces.

"Nothing," Percy replied. "How about our better half?"

"Same story," said Clarisse, over the radio. The daughter of Ares, along with some other half-bloods from the first night of fighting, had been released from the infirmary mere hours ago. They weren't in perfect condition, but at this point, we needed everyone who could walk.

Kevin stood on my other side. He was calm and ready, a contrast to Alex's nerves, his sword held in front of him in a relaxed pose. Percy, too, was totally calm, while the other demigods were at varying points on the spectrum of nervousness.

We spoke little, just waiting. I had my sight fully engaged. I was certain that Jake was going to pull some trick to get an early advantage. I wouldn't put it past him to shadow-travel the monsters past us, or even around us, which would fulfil Alex's fears. I kept my concentration, staring at the road ahead, tensed to catch the first trick.

In the end, I didn't need to.

We heard them first, their heavy breathing and footsteps rolling along in an inhuman rhythm. I exchanged glances with Percy, who nodded, and held a finger to his lips. Three bursts of static came over the radio - the signal that the other advance team had also spotted approaching monsters. The sounds of their approach were distant, but as the moments dragged by the noises grew louder until, in the still silence of the night, it felt like the monsters were already right in front of us.

Then we caught the first glimpses of movement.

"There!" Percy hissed, pointing. Though they were obscured by the darkness, I made out the leading ranks of Jake's troops, about a hundred metres down the road. Their movement was steady, neither dragging nor rushing.

The half-bloods readied their weapons. I drew my knife. This wasn't meant to be a long exchange. We were supposed to disrupt the monsters' organisation, break up their front ranks to reduce the damage they could do when they reached camp, then retreat quickly.

And as they came into the view, I realised that this had been a very good idea.

"Christ," Kevin muttered. A few other half-bloods echoed the sentiment in more vociferous terms.

As Annabeth had expected, Jake had heavily front-loaded the assault. The first two rows of monsters were all Laistrygonians, and behind them lumbered a couple of ranks of Hyperboreans. At least thirty-two heavyweight beasts, a deathly sharp tip to the spear that Jake sought to drive into camp's heart.

The gap between us and them was down to seventy metres now. Percy raised Riptide.

"Remember," he muttered, "don't get trapped in any long fights. Kill what you can in the next few minutes. Then we get back to the hill."

We made various noises of assent, though I'm sure I wasn't the only one wondering if things would be that simple. I scanned the monsters with my sight, but I found nothing, no hint of a shadow-trick, but you don't need magic to make a plan go awry.

"Don't move yet," Annabeth whispered in our ears. "Wait until they're close enough to see you. You don't want to give them the time and space to charge."

Kevin was still as a stone next to me, but I couldn't help moving my weight from foot to foot, anything to relieve the nerves. My heart thumped, and I heard the half-bloods' breathing speeding up.

The Laistrygonians were about thirty-five metres away, and they still hadn't seen us, concealed as we were by the shadow of the trees around us, but that couldn't last much longer.

Then, Alex snapped.

"They're too close, we can't—" He withdrew something from his pocket - a runestone. I grabbed his arm, hissing at him, but he jerked free, and before Percy or anyone else could react, he spoke a word of power, and an arc of green power shot from the stone. It soared through the air, painfully bright in the night, before plummeting into the front rows of monsters. There was a small explosion on impact, and a few monsters were hurled in the air, landing on the ground with painful thuds.

Those who weren't flung about like oversized rag dolls shouted in angry surprise, and came to a halt, glaring around for the source of the blast.

It took them about a half a second to spot us.

"Okay," Percy said, in a normal, very calm voice. "That was unnecessary, man."

"Sorry," Alex stammered.

He started to say something in apology, but I didn't hear him because the monsters chose that moment to run towards us, screaming and slavering in rage.

Percy cursed, and then roared, "Don't stand there! _Charge_!"

He rushed forward and we followed, throwing ourselves towards the monsters in the hope of neutralising their stampede with our own. We were lucky. If the creatures had started running even ten metres further back, they would have reached crushing speed, but as it was they only had fifteen metres to gather speed. When we crashed into them, our momentum was roughly equal and cancelled out theirs.

That was one problem solved. Now we just had the other little issue of getting caught in a guerrilla skirmish with a gang of furious monsters.

I found myself directly under an ten-foot-tall Laistrygonian. It didn't notice me for a second, but it swung its big wooden club around wildly once, twice, nearly hitting me the third time. I ducked under the weapon's arc and jammed my dagger into its side.

Normally monsters explode instantly after such a wound, but nothing happened. The giant just staggered, roared, and looked down. It flicked the club contemptuously, and luckily its aim was bad. It clipped my arm rather than smash me in the face, but still I was thrown back. I hit the ground, winded, but rolled to the left in time to avoid being stepped on by a Hyperborean. Around me, the demigods ducked and weaved amongst the raging monsters.

I got to my feet, still dizzy, as the Laistrygonian lumbered toward me, my knife still stuck in its side. We eyed each other, paying no attention to the combatants around us. I needed to get my blade, but the club was in the way and the damn monster _knew_ my weapon was stuck in it. It waved its weapon at me, leering, taunting.

A mad thought occurred to me, and I ran straight at the giant. Its beady eyes widened in glee, and it raised the club high over its head to bring it down on mine, but I picked up speed. I drew within its reach, and at the last second before the club came down, I jumped. As the wooden weapon swung at me, I leapt up past it, coming down in an arc and colliding squarely with the Laistrygonian's now-confused-looking face.

I hit hard, shoulder-first, and he came off the worse. I landed at his feet, and got upright just in time to snatch my dagger back. He stumbled backwards, but I moved with him, and and stabbed him twice, three times in the legs.

Finally, the damn Canadian exploded into yellow dust. Triumphant, I turned to see how my friends were doing - and nearly got my face torn off by a _dracaena_.

" _Why_ ," I shouted, dodging the lunge and slashing the monster's arm, "are _dracaena_ _always_ trying to _eat_ my _face_?" The thing screeched in pain but didn't back off, and slashed at my face again with a jagged claw. I weaved, keeping too close for the monster to have room to manoeuvre, moving too fast to be bitten. It feinted a couple times, then jerked at me with its head, but the movement was too obvious. I had time to react, and cut the monster's throat.

Through the ensuing cloud of dust I glimpsed Percy slaying the last Hyperborean with a flying leap that ended in a neat decapitation, and I saw several demigods wrestling with a cohort of telkhines, trying to keep the sea-creatures' teeth from their necks.

Then I heard Annabeth. "You've been in there too long, you need to get out," she shouted, loud enough to give me a pain in my ear, to accompany the throb in my arm where the club had hit me. An odd goblin-like monster rushed me, but I kicked it in the chest, sending it flying towards Percy, who saw it out of the corner of his eye and despatched it with a single stroke.

"You've done enough damage, withdraw _now_ , both teams."

"Let's get out of here!" I shouted. Some of this team didn't seem to be hearing Annabeth, but the demigod closest to me, a daughter of Ares named Emily, heard me and echoed my call.

"Let's move, move, _move!_ " she shouted, already backing away. Finally Percy heard, dispatched the telkhine menacing him, and hurried towards us, shouting at the others to follow. Within seconds, the ten of us were beating a hasty retreat.

Well, _hasty retreat_ doesn't really do us justice. We ran as fast as we freaking could away from an army of monsters who were, as I may have already mentioned, screaming and slavering. We dashed up the road towards camp, barely ahead of Tartarus's forces, the chaos among their ranks slowing them down. Our arms pumped, the weapons in our hands waving dangerously as as we steamed up the road.

Within moments we reached the foot of the hill, and the other team was already here, hurrying up to our next strategic point. We joined them, and I found myself running next to Clarisse and Zack, but still the monsters were mere metres behind us. We laboured up the hill, forming into a solid group of twenty as we went, according to the plan.

We got halfway up the slope, and Clarisse and Percy started yelling at us to halt. We did so, stopping and turning to face the monsters as they surged up the hill.

I glanced around. I'd ended up next to Olivia and Bradley. The son of Demeter looked confident, ready for the fight, but the daughter of Hecate was more nervous, though not as bad as her brother. Tartarus's troops steamed towards us, spreading out across the hill even as we did the same. Olivia caught my eye just before we re-engaged, and gave me a nod - not quite a goodbye, but not quite a gesture of encouragement, either.

And just before the monsters could slam into us—

"Leo, release the ballistics."

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

I heard a _whump_ over the radio, followed by a rush of air overhead as our other payload came rushing over the hill, through the air—

" _GET DOWN!_ "

And we threw ourselves down as the projectile hit the foot of the slope with a crash. Monster screams rang out horribly, muffled quickly by the rough sounds of quick, small explosions. But then a rallying screech came as the monsters regathered. We straightened up, as they resumed their charge.

The catapult had taken out six or seven ranks of the attackers, and slowed their momentum, but it hadn't stopped them. It had just made them a lot more angry, and so they came barreling up towards us, apparently furious that we dared defend ourselves.

And as they did so, our reinforcements came over the hill behind us.

All the rest of our ground fighters, along with any Hunters who hadn't joined the archery teams, came over the crest of the hill and surged down to strengthen our defence, just the monsters cleared the distance and ran into us. The conflict was resumed as we took our stand on the slope of Half-Blood Hill, fighting now with every drop of belief and strength we had left. In the first few seconds, another goddamn Laistrygonian nearly impaled me with a rusty spear, but Olivia, a runestone clutched in her left hand, tossed a blast of power into its face. The giant screamed and fell backwards, tumbling down the slope and crushing some smaller monsters.

"Thanks," I shouted, but she'd already disappeared into the fray, hacking through a team of what looked like miniature minotaurs.

I kept my sight running as I fought, now facing another telkhine, and I found that it helped me to predict the monsters' decisions. Just before they started to move, their dark aura, heavy with Tartarus's protection, trembled in a certain direction. It wasn't much, but enough to give me warning. I avoided a rake across the chest from the telkhine's claws, and killed it with three jabs.

I became aware of things flying overhead, and I realised that the archers in the towers had opened fire, and were pouring arrows onto the attackers as fast as they could pull them from their magic pouches. For a brief moment, I was afraid that I'd be hit, but my irrational doubt in the marksmanship of the Apollo kids was allayed when a single arrow sheared through the air and pierced the eye of a small minotaur that was diving toward me.

The fight was a whirlwind. Normally in a battle I dealt with one enemy at a time, but this was a real nightmare. Two, three monsters were always around me at once, never giving me a second to breathe. My only advantage was that they didn't know how to work as a team, but just stumbled over each other in their lust for the kill. That gave me the option of playing my attackers against each other, but it was still a struggle to stay ahead, to dance a beat ahead of evisceration.

Three dracaena ringed me, hissing and jabbing, but I dodged one, and another accidentally plunged a sword into the third, which exploded, providing me the distraction I needed to decapitate the first monster. That left only one, which lurched at me, but before I could react an arrow speared its head in a gruesome execution.

Around me, the half-bloods span and hacked, moving with grace and finesse even while performing ruthless acts of combat. We were keeping up, just barely, holding back the mighty tsunami of darkness with a few well-placed stones, but our defensive line was tenuous. I stumbled back from a Hyperborean's icy sword, and glanced down the hill for a brief moment. I caught sight of the full army, and my heart sank.

Tartarus's new power had had a lot of repercussions, and one of them was that he'd boosted his forces tenfold. The army stretched all the way down the hill, and then down the road in both directions, disappearing out of sight in the gloom of the night. The impact of our catapults was already distant history.

But I didn't have time to process that. The Hyperborean lurched at me, breathing waves of frost which mired the muddy ground, and a vicious-looking telkhine was following in the giant's wake. I slipped to the side, out of the way of the swinging sword, and skittered around the monster, forcing it to twist - and the sword swung right into the telkhine, slicing it in two. That left me with ol' Frosty, but now I was behind him. I darted in close and stabbed, not deep but a few times.

The thing roared and tried to toss me away but I anticipated the tactic, and got out of the way of its thrashing. Finally it dragged itself around to face me. I tensed, looking for an opening. But before I could dive in, an expression of dim surprise crossed the monster's face, and it exploded into yellow dust. I held my arm over my face, trying to avoid breathing the gunk in. When the air cleared, I saw Kevin standing there, his sword still raised.

"You're welcome." He had to shout over the chaos of the battle, though we were only feet apart.

I gave him a thumbs-up, turned, and plunged back into the fray.

I found myself alongside Annabeth, as she took on a trio of empousa at once. These were deadly, smart fighters, not dumb foot-soldiers like the others. Two of them were engaging Annabeth, keeping her busy defending, while the third was lurking to one side, waiting for an opportunity. The moment I turned to them, the third empousa moved, swinging its rapier at Annabeth's neck.

" _No_!" I shouted, and I rushed forward, throwing myself into the path of the blade.

It wasn't a terribly smart move, but it worked. The empousa jerked in surprise, and the sword's arc slipped. It sailed right into my chest, but that didn't matter much since it was made of celestial bronze. Spitting with fury, the goat-like creature turned its focus onto me.

I became aware of the net in its left hand. I tensed, and we were both still for a second, waiting for the other to commit first. I watched the monster's aura for some sign of intention. She watched my posture for some sign of movement into the range of her throwing net. Next to us, Annabeth disarmed an empousa, shouting in triumph as she drove her blade into the creature's neck.

I let my gaze flicker toward my empousa's exposed left side, and started to move. Instantly its aura twitched around its arm, and I jerked in the other direction just as she threw the net. It sailed right past me, and I closed in before she could get over her surprise. She jerked her bronze sword at me again, and it harmlessly passed through my neck. Her guard was wide open, and I stepped in, slashing my knife across _her_ neck.

She exploded, just as Annabeth dispatched her other half-donkey, half-bronze enemy with a very Annabethly snarl. I turned to congratulate her, when a terrible screaming noise filled the air, like the screech of a dying god.

My senses flared, even as I shut my eyes and pressed one hand over an ear. I could feel the approach of a new danger, several of them. My consciousness started to ebb away, overwhelmed by the pressure, as the screaming grew louder, blotting out everything else, but I fought back, steadying my breathing and holding on. I opened my eyes.

It was just like the battle of Los Angeles. A number of dark spirits had joined the battle, hurtling through the air around us like comets, occasionally swerving into the battle, sending out blasts of power, causing chaos. The largest of them, with the most intense aura, circled above us, ripples of greyish energy spiralling down from it.

"It's Dolos!" I realised, looking at Annabeth, who was listlessly fending off a Hyperborean. I hurried over, rammed my knife as far into the thing's torso as I could. I ignored its disintegration, turning to the daughter of Athena. "Dolos is here, he's using his powers to mess with us, I can see it."

Annabeth caught my eyes for a second, her expression deadened by the spirit's influence, and nodded. I stumbled back a step as another pint-sized minotaur galloped at me. While I fought it off, she spoke on the radio, "Dolos is assaulting us with his powers, be aware of it. He's trying to make us give up fighting. Don't give in, don't let him into your minds."

A number of half-bloods shouted back in assent, even as I heard a scream of pain. Another of our number had fallen, cut down by a leathery telkhine. I dispatched the minotaur, glanced behind me, and got a shock.

The plan had been to hold our position at the middle of the hill, but that hadn't worked out so good. The sheer pressure of the monsters had pushed us back - _right_ back, to the top of the hill. Thalia's tree was behind me.

"Chiron!" I took a step back from the battle, leaned against the tree, and shouted into my radio. "What's the situation with the borders? How far have they contracted?"

The centaur came in. "They've pulled back as far as our row of cabins." His tone was grim. "I think they've stabilised for the moment. We should move to the next stage of the plan. At least if you fall back here, the Hunters and the archers can take up their new positions and we can regroup behind Olivia's wards."

It had turned out that the camp borders hadn't just failed in one _poof_. They were collapsing slowly, contracting foot by foot. This wasn't really much better in the long run, but it gave us some small chance of making it through the night.

Annabeth came in, as Percy stumbled past me, grappling with yet another Hyperborean. "Are we confirmed on that, Chiron? Move to stage three?"

The centaur paused, and in that silence I wondered what kind of pain it was causing him to give the order to let the monsters pour down the wrong side of Half-Blood Hill. Even to me, it was an unthinkable, horrible idea.

"Do it. Move to stage three."

"All half-bloods, fall back to our second line," Annabeth ordered instantly. "The borders have contracted and we need to regroup. Fall back behind the second line _now_."

The half-bloods reacted immediately. They disentangled from the monsters, slaying those around them and gathering up their fallen friends with military efficiency. Behind me, there were creaks, and doors opened at the bottom of the towers. The children of Apollo poured out, bolting down the hill without backwards glances, but the Hunters came out and stayed on the hilltop. The monsters were confused, and seemed to think we were fleeing in fear. They tried to rush forward, but the Hunters laid down covering fire, pounding the attackers with silver arrows as everyone gathered at the top of the hill. I fell in with them, helping Kevin to carry a fallen son of Ares. Annabeth and Percy were close by, helping a tired Clarisse, who'd taken the Golden Fleece from the pine tree, according to the plan.

Then we made the dash downhill, a reverse of our upslope run earlier. Horrific, triumphant roars rang out from the army behind us, the spirits screeched overhead, and for a moment I felt like I was already dead, trapped in a terrible, circular nightmare in the Fields of Punishment. We kept moving, the Hunters still covering us as they began to edge down the hill, Kevin and I supporting the almost certainly dead demigod as we hurried for the line of safety below. I thought I saw Chiron and Rachel standing behind the cabins, waving at us frantically.

A chilling _human_ scream cracked through the monsters' shouts, quite far behind us. This was the most dangerous moment of the night so far. We were on the run, and if somehow the monsters could close the gap—

But we were near the foot of the hill, and the foremost demigods were already there, hurrying through Olivia's wards, which I saw as a thin green glow wrapping around the wall of cabins. Closer, closer, closer, and then we were through the barrier, into some semblance of safety. The screams of the monsters were abruptly muffled, and I felt a calming power wash over me, wiping away Dolos's mucky influence and soothing my fear.

The medics had been waiting, and now swarmed around us, taking the injured from their carriers, inspecting wounds and checking vital signs. The Hunters passed through the wards and started to help with triage, but at a word from Thalia most of them surged onto the roofs of the cabins. The monsters were headed down the hill now, seconds away from crashing into the wards. The Hunters resumed firing, raining arrows onto the approaching ranks, killing their momentum just before they crashed into our barrier.

The wards flared, painfully bright for a moment, illuminating the entire camp in a glare of green light. Shrieks of alarm rang out as creatures were fried by a massive discharge of magic, and most of the demigods stopped to stare.

Eventually the light faded, and the wards held. A swathe of monsters had been vaporised. The air was weighed down with yellow dust, and more attackers kept charging, but all their energy had been killed off by that blast. The Hunters continued to pour arrows down on them, scattering any formations and taking out the largest beasts before they could put pressure on the barrier.

"We did it," I said to Annabeth, somewhat amazed that it had actually worked. She stared at the wards, as the light flickered and the half-bloods jerked back into action around us. "We've held them off."

She met my eyes. "For now. But we don't have long." She put a hand to her ear, turning the radio back on. "All counsellors or deputy counsellors, report to the Big House as soon as you can to review our situation. We have half an hour until the wards start to break down, don't waste it."


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

 **Piece of Darkness IV - Initiative**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty-Six**

* * *

 _Now, you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it, because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You_ want _to be_ fooled _._

–Cutter, 'The Prestige'

* * *

I did what I could to help with the casualties, but there were too many people with too many severe wounds. At least ten, probably fifteen or more demigods had been killed. Most of our troops had at least minor injuries. Even Percy had gotten a painful scrape down his left arm. The Apollo medics were working faster than I'd ever seen them, trying to keep control of the situation.

I stumbled through the melee, feeling dazed. The corpses of those who'd fallen were being put at the back of the Big House, out of the way of the fighting. I helped carry the body of a son of Ares around there, nearly throwing up in the bushes when I saw how bad he'd been hurt. Everything seemed fragmented and unreal. The monsters were still pressing at our defences, but the Hunters were doing their best to dampen their intensity, and the wards were holding steady.

Eventually I made my way to the rec room, and sat alone in the corner for a few minutes, waiting for the others.

We had to do something.

We were trapped, and there was nowhere to go. Any rational observer would include that we were going to die, but I felt a certainty in my bones, a belief that we needed to change that, tha t we _could_ change that. I just didn't know how. Perhaps my acceptance of defeat had been swept away by the heat of combat, for now I felt sure that we could do better than just wait to die. There had to be a solution, some way to pull through, something we hadn't thought of, but nothing came to my mind except the faces of all those who'd died already.

Yet the instinct that had guided me over the last week, the intuition that had told me how to get past Nyx, that had helped me understand Tartarus's tricks, that had warned me of the catastrophes of the last two nights before they'd come to pass - _that_ told me there was a way, there was a hope. For most of my life I hadn't been the kind of person who believed instinct over logic, but the more I used my pure sight, the more I accepted my task as Lightbringer, the greater my confidence in my own intuition became.

And now I was confident that there was an escape route. I just needed to find it.

The counsellors came in then, Annabeth and Chiron the last to enter. The daughter of Athena shut the door behind us, and glanced around suspiciously. She walked around the room, turning on any lights she could and pointing them towards the ping-pong table. We looked at her in confusion as she moved to stand at the head of the table, next to Chiron.

"Tartarus is listening through the shadows, remember," she said. "Be careful what you say." She took a breath. "Okay. Chiron. Is there any news from the gods?"

The centaur shook his head. "Nothing. I've had no communications all night. I don't even know what Tartarus is doing now. We have no idea what's going on in the outside world."

"What does that matter?" Percy was standing across from me. "What difference would it make? We're trapped here."

Annabeth shook her head. "I was thinking that if we hold out for a few more hours, one of the gods would be able to reach us. It's in their interests for us to survive. If any of them are out there, they might be able to get here and help us fight off Tartarus's forces."

"But _how_?" Alice, beside me, was incredulous. I hadn't seen her since this morning. She looked exhausted, worn down by the fighting. "We don't have anyone we can contact. How can they even _know_ we need help? They're probably hoping we rescue _them_."

There was a tense pause. All the half-bloods, twelve or more, looked at Annabeth, who shrugged.

"I asked the Hypnos counsellor to go into a trance and use his powers to send out a psychic distress beacon," she said, looking from face to face. "He told me that if any god is nearby, he'd be certain to reach them."

"And in the meantime?" Kevin, at the end of the table, was pale with tiredness and pain. He'd twisted an ankle dashing down the hill and I hadn't even noticed. "What do we do until then?"

"We hang on," Chiron answered for Annabeth. "We have nothing else. There's no other option for us now. We hold camp. Either we survive, or we are crushed."

I don't know what came over me. I'd been standing back from the table, just watching, but an instinctual response filled me. I stepped forward, and slapped my hand on the table.

"No," I said, loudly, not sure where the words were coming from. "We can't stay here. We need to escape."

Everyone stared at me, their eyes glassy in the strong light Annabeth had set up for us. "What?" Percy said. "We can't," said the daughter of Athena, with a shake of her head. Even Kevin seemed to think I'd lost my marbles. He blinked at me in confusion.

"We're all going to _die_ if we stay here," I said, looking around the table. Only Alice seemed to have any confidence in what I was trying to say. "We need to run, get far away, beyond Tartarus's influence."

"But Cyrus," Chiron was gentle. "We don't have any children of Hecate strong enough to get us away from here, and anyway, it's likely that Tartarus will be able to trace us. There's no way to escape."

I shook my head, though I wasn't really thinking things through, just riding that feeling that I'd _missed_ something. "There _must_ be someone," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper as I cast around wildly. I sensed the demigods exchanging worried glances, but I ignored them. "This is a camp of the children of the _gods_ , we must have _someone_." I paused, then looked up at Chiron. "What about Nico?"

"No," the centaur shook his head, looking at me in concern. "He's far too weak. Cyrus, you need to calm down. We have a little time now, let's not waste it by trying to concoct some plan to escape when we know it's—"

" _No_ ," I cut across him. "We can't just lie here and _die_ , goddammit, we have to find a way out. We're the last hope for civilisation, Chiron, the _last_ hope. I didn't come back here to watch us get crushed like ants under Tartarus's boot when we're the only ones with the power to _destroy_ him."

A shocked, almost angry silence filled the air, but I didn't meet their gazes. My thoughts ran furiously as I tried to catch hold of the idea that was lurking just beyond the reach of sane analysis.

"Nico could do it if he was strong enough, he did something like this before," I muttered. I glanced from person to person, not really seeing them. Then I turned to Alice. "Remember? He saved us, at the Edge of the West, even with Tartarus right there. He did that, and he was exhausted. He could do it again, right? He could do it."

Alice looked back at me, her eyes wide. "I don't know, Cyrus," she whispered, as though talking someone down off a ledge. "I don't know. I never even figured out how he was able to do that, and there was only two of us then."

"It never did make sense," I nodded, paying no attention to the whispered discussions around me, as people wondered if I'd finally gone insane. "It was like he'd tapped into some other power source. And there was something else strange, too. Remember the box he gave—?"

I froze, my mouth half-open, my eyes going glassy. Alice just looked at me.

That was it.

My thoughts slowed as they reached a still point of clarity. Pieces fell into place. Connections formed. Reality converged.

The box Nico had given me. The implausible power he'd shown that night. The intensity with which he'd made me swear to never reveal its existence. His long imprisonment. Jake's mention of trying to get something out of the son of Hades. The curious way Nico had already known about the pieces of darkness.

And the aura, the _aura_ , _that_ was at the centre of it all. The aura had shown me Jack's deception, and now it showed me the truth. My hand shook as I reached down, into my pocket, and withdrew the little tin box.

I stared at it, really _looked_ at it, for the first time in months. It had a dark, intense aura, like the aura of a god, exerting a tremendous pressure on the space around it. It was unlike any aura I'd seen around any other inanimate object.

Almost.

Because it was exactly the same aura that I'd seen around _Jack's_ box. Around the box he'd shown me in New Mexico, the one that had contained the piece of darkness.

The same aura. Around this object, given to me by Nico di Angelo, who was conveniently lying in a bed upstairs making a miraculous recovery.

Distantly, I heard a voice - Alice - saying my name but I ignored her, and started running. I dashed to the door, and out into the corridor. I threw myself up the stairs, heading to the top floor, to the infirmary. I shoved past a medic at the door, drawing a cry of irritation, and raced to the back, jumping over the makeshift beds that lay on the floor.

I tore through the partition that concealed Nico. He was sitting up in bed, and looked at me with a raised eyebrow as I stopped by his bed.

" _Nico_ ," I gasped. "I get it. I see it now."

He frowned, and started to say something, but then he saw the box in my left hand, and nodded.

"Where did you get it?" I asked, thrusting it at him.

Nico said nothing for a long moment, just looking at the tin in my hand.

"Hestia," he said finally. "She told me it was a piece of pure shadow. She gave it to me after I recovered the Flame, but didn't tell me anything about it. It was only when we were in the Fields of Silence that I stumbled upon a spirit, the spirit of restrained power, that I learned what it really is." He took the box from my shaking hand. "I'd almost forgotten about it till now. Jake wanted to know where it was, but I suppressed the information so he could never find it. Imagine if he'd known that you'd had it all along."

"You can use it," I said, still breathless from my run. "You used it that time, to get us back to Hades. You can use it again, and shadow-travel us all out of here."

Nico popped open the box. The piece of darkness lay inside, a dark, shiny thing that somehow did not reflect the light.

"I can't," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not strong enough for that, and anyway, Tartarus is blocking shadow-travel. I sensed it a few hours ago."

I fell on my knees next to the bed.

"You _can_ ," I insisted, staring up at him. His aura had recovered a great deal, almost restored to its former power. "I can _see_ it. Hestia gave you this for a reason. She knew things would reach this point. She's been planning everything from the start, playing the game against Tartarus. The two of them have arranged everything, and she has arranged this. You have this piece of darkness because we need it, and we need it _now_."

I wasn't just making that up. I remembered Hestia's words, how she said she'd seen everything, all the combinations, all the possibilities. She'd tried to make me believe that she wasn't influencing the war in any real way, but I knew that was a diversion. She was the other chessmaster here, the true enemy of Tartarus, the flame that raged against the dark.

A high-pitched screech came from outside, followed by human and inhuman shouts of alarm. The screech went on in a single note for a painful moment, before stopping as abruptly as it had begun. Then I heard Alice's voice, growing nearer.

"Cyrus? Are you here?" She reached us, as I rose to my feet. "That was the wards. They're starting to break down. We need to get outside."

"Wait," Nico said, in a familiar tone of command. He turned, so that he was halfway out of bed, and met my gaze.

"We would have to get everyone far away, right beyond Tartarus's reach," he said quietly. "Not America. Somewhere further away, where he can't get to us."

"I know a place," I said.

"Where?"

I opened my mouth, but Alice had caught the gist of my idea, and grabbed my arm. "Wait," she said, gesturing at the shadows all around us, not filled by the dim light from the overhead bulb. "Not here. Tell him downstairs."

She took off out of the infirmary, dragging me with her, and Nico dragged himself out of bed to hurry after us. We scurried through the corridors of the Big House, the faces and voices of our friends flashing past, as if in a dream, as we hurried to the rec room. I heard Kevin saying something, shouting a question, but I didn't stop.

We reached the ground floor, and nearly collided with Chiron and Annabeth as they came through the door of the rec room.

"What is it?" Annabeth said, staring at us, especially at Nico.

"Inside," I said, pushing past them. "I have an idea. We can save the whole camp, if you just listen. Come on." Alice and Nico followed me to the pool of light in the middle of the room, while Annabeth and Chiron just gaped at us, particularly at the son of Hades, who quirked an eyebrow and said, "Don't just stand there. Shut the door and listen to the crazy guy."

The two of them exchanged a bemused glance. Annabeth swung the door shut, and I laid our last hope on the table.

* * *

"Are you sure?" I asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You can manage three jumps?"

Nico nodded. His aura was growing around him, as he gathered his power. "It's the only way. I can't do everyone at once, but—"

"We're not leaving anyone behind," Annabeth interjected, for the tenth time, just down the hall from us. "Not a soul."

"I'll get it done," he replied, meeting her gaze. "Before the wards fall. I promise."

We were on the second floor of the Big House, near the infirmary. Most of the camp counsellors were here, along with all the wounded. We were forming a human chain, all of us linked by touch. Some of the people in the infirmary were still arranging themselves, linking up one by one.

Next to me, Nico had the piece of darkness clenched in his right hand. Power was wafting from the artefact through his whole body, layer upon layer of energy settling into his aura, enlarging and intensifying it. It reminded me of Jake's aura, all the layers and levels of power, but Nico's aura did not carry the Dark One's air of anger and hatred. I was at his left shoulder, and Alice at his right.

A high-pitched noise rang out for a second, more quiet than before. The wards were still up, but they were wearing out. Already some monsters had slipped through them, but our friends had cut them down before they could cause real damage.

Chiron had agreed to our plan, simply because there was no choice, and no time left to discuss it. If we were going to do it, we had to do it now. He was outside, marshalling the defence. He'd insisted on being one of the last to be transported to safety, while also making Nico promise to shadow-travel the most important demigods first.

"Are we ready?" Percy stood next to Annabeth, gripping her hand. Bradley, Will and Rachel were between me and the son of Poseidon. As he spoke, another pulse of power ran through Nico, and this time his aura doubled in size. I could _physically_ sense it, a pressure on my skin and on my mind, like the presence of a god, awe-inspiring in its scope. But then a god was just a supremely powerful being, and for this moment Nico was harnessing the pure power of a primordial being.

"Alright," he whispered, a vein at his temple throbbing. This was a lot of power for anyone to wield, even a son of the Big Three. His whole body was tense as the energy ran through him. Alice had been concerned about his ability to withstand this much power, but he was confident of his strength - or, at least, pretended to be. "Is everyone ready?"

Shouts of assent came from the back of the infirmary. Everyone was linked. We were set. Nico took a deep breath, and flexed his left hand. The shadows all around the landing and infirmary whispered toward him, drawn toward the son of Hades's aura like detritus being sucked into a hurricane, and like a hurricane, his aura began to whirl and blow, growing until the son of Hades was surrounded by a pillar of spiralling darkness.

It struck me that Nico was saving us from a deeper dark by wielding these shadows. It made a kind of macabre sense. The darkness isn't bad, it's just frightening. But sometimes only one frightening thing can overcome another.

"On three," he said, just about visible through it all, his eyes shut now. "One."

Everyone tensed, readying themselves. No-one was certain that this would work - but we had nothing else. Camp was a death trap now, all we could do was get out before it snapped shut.

"Two."

The temperature was dropping, as though the piece of darkness was sucking the heat out of everything. I breathed out, and icy air wafted in front of me.

"Thr—"

Before he could say the word, a terrible shattering pierced the silence of the corridor, as though every mirror in the world had just been broken. Screams of terror came from outside, and my senses, already heightened by the stimulation of Nico's power, felt a breakage all around us, as though the walls were exploding - but not the walls of the building.

The wards had fallen.

The trap had shut.

"Hurry, Nico, we don't—" Annabeth started to say, but a tinkling sound, quieter yet more ominous than the shattering noise, made her stop.

I looked up, and the world slowed to a crawl.

A black arrow shot through the window next to Annabeth and Percy, and before either of them could react, it speared into the son of Poseidon's shoulder.

He roared in pain, and fell to his knees. Annabeth screamed, and dropped with him, holding onto him, but the chain was broken now. I felt a shift beside me. Nico's power had reached a climax, whirling around him, and it was too late to stop, he couldn't wait, even as Percy slumped against the wall, blood oozing from his wound, and the terrible noises of the battle outside filled the air as the monsters poured into the final part of Camp Half-Blood which had been unharmed—

And the shadows surged around us, blocking out everything, filling every sense, their sheer power even reaching into my mind, and then we were gone, borne away through the darkness, away from the monsters, away from Tartarus, and away from our friends.


End file.
